


Exile//Vilify

by silverjirachi



Category: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Video Game), The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Divination, Gen, Mentions of blood and gore, Mind Control, Religion, also the death of one major oc happens but not for awhile i'm just warning you now, as well as master kohga, but only a couple of them have major roles and only for the first section, in mostly a ritual sacrifice way, king rhoam the queen of hyrule and zelda will all be appearing later on but just not yet, lots of oc's because astor has literally no backstory so i had to make a lot of stuff up, they're in a monastery for the first half kind of, zeldas mom dies because thats just what happens in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28086507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverjirachi/pseuds/silverjirachi
Summary: Origin story for Astor from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.Astor has trained since childhood to become the next Royal Seer.  But, he is plagued with a dark secret: a prophecy that states that he will one day be expelled from the castle, sent into exile, and devote his life to Calamity Ganon.If there are some people who are destined to become heroes, then there are others who are destined to become villains.  How much free will do you have in a world full of "chosen ones," and what is the cost of knowing a future you can do nothing to circumvent?New chapters: 10 and 11
Comments: 34
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> So I was actually inspired to do this from a couple scenes, in addition to my general frustration with Astor's lack of development or character - ESPECIALLY when he has so much potential - but one cutscene in particular stands out to me that I wanted to expand on, and that's when he's on the brink of losing in the final chapter, and he basically says this can't happen to him because "The great Calamity Ganon chose me." 
> 
> The way he just sounds so busted up about this, like he's spent his whole life entirely invested in it BECAUSE Ganon chose him, like he feels like there cannot possibly be any other option, his total obsession with fate and destiny, and I started to wonder why. 
> 
> I started to think about if that was his only option, how much of a choice he really had, and what it would mean if people like Link/Zelda and even Astor are "chosen ones" and what that means for the world they live in, and this was the result of that.
> 
> So the gist of this story that he's the Royal Seer, but he's destined to one day go into exile and devote his life to Ganon, and he knows this, and can do nothing to stop it. Just like the King will be useless in stopping the Great Calamity.
> 
> The story covers his childhood, training, time in the castle interacting with Zelda's mom, King Rhoam, and little Zelda, then his exile where he eventually meets up with Master Kohga, Sooga, and the Yiga Clan.
> 
> Mentions of blood and gore are mostly in a ritualistic context, except for a portion that happens later that I will warn about. It's called 'Forced Consciousness' and it's a psychic technique that is incredibly intense and can be traumatic. Major characters are not physically violent to each other, except for once that will be warned about. Some animals are gutted and sacrificed, also to be warned about.
> 
> I intend to update a couple times a month, at least, so stay posted! I also have a little spinoff series of silly shorts called Stories from Exile that is also posted here. It's a bunch of stuff that wouldn't fit in this, because there's a lot to get through already, and a lot of it focuses on the Yiga Clan.
> 
> if you like my writing and wanna see more of the stuff I do, you can find me on tumblr  
> @silverjirachi, or on my legend of zelda sideblog @sheikah-simp
> 
> i'll be posting updates there occasionally, as well as some art and content you won't be able to find here, so feel free to come follow and say hi!!

The boy had always been a problem.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been that much issue if he got along with the other children. But he frightened them. He never really meant to. It was one thing to be bookish--to be a bit more light and sensitive, easily upset by a scraped knee or averse to the concept of getting mud or dirt on his clothes--but Astor exhibited strange, alarming qualities that his parents did not quite know what to do with.

He had a penchant for finding dead things. And every young boy has their phase poking and prodding dead lizards with sticks, but Astor had a knack for finding them, dissecting them, and growing attached to them in the way other children would a toy or a doll. On two occasions, his mother had to pry such a dead lizard out of her young toddler’s pockets--another time, a snake. And this, already, was two occasions too many. So his parents, concerned, monitored their son’s odd behavior, once having heard that, in addition to other things, harm to small animals was one of the first signs of a disturbed individual. But Astor did not harm any animals; in fact, he had a great aversion to harming anything or anyone. He just had an uncanny ability to show up where things had died, or would soon die. 

As he grew, the folks of Hateno began to joke that he had the opposite of a green thumb. Plants did to seem to almost inexplicably die after he had gotten his hands on them--perhaps he was just awkward, and bad at handling them--but this ability to make things die and rot even the tiniest bit more quickly, even by happenstance, landed him a job sweeping floors at the local inn rather than with his parents, who couldn’t risk losing too much of their crop, nor having their produce in the market spoiling on the shelves. But this aversion alone--to Astor, to his strange behaviors and the supposed “mark of death” that surrounded him--could have been explained to be nothing more than the superstitions of the people living in an isolated, agrarian village. People in isolated, agrarian villages have a tendency to gossip and exaggerate. But this was far from the only occasion of Astor’s… uniqueness.  


As a child, when he was not cooped up alone with his books, he would go out to the odd-looking horned statue statue at the far reaches of town--near Firly Pond--and sit there for hours, tossing stones, prodding at fish and frogs, ripping up blades of grass and leaves and throwing them into the water. Some people would see him there mumbling to himself, even speaking out loud and openly to the statue--every now and then, even reading a book to it. On occasion, he attempted to convince other children in the village to accompany him to the pond, but none of them shared the same appreciation for the statue, and seemed to laugh at him when he’d go on about it. His parents were thankful, at least, that his gruesome obsession had turned to this statue and away from creatures that could carry pests and disease.

And he excelled in school. While he did not have many friends, it gave him time to get more of his work done, and he went through all his subjects with ease. In fact, he was often far ahead in his lessons and was allowed to move up a grade early. But his good behavior in his studies did not make up for all the other perplexing behaviors he exhibited such as speaking with the statue at the pond and staring into fire for hours at a time.  


But then the really erratic behavior started.

Around age seven, he began having dreams. Intense, inexplicable nightmares that his parents could not wake him up out of. He said he often saw monsters in these dreams, but he was never afraid of them, even though he would scream in the middle of the night. When the moon was full and rising in the evening, he would occasionally run around town, chasing the other children and yelling “Blood Moon, Blood Moon, Blood Moon!! You better run!! You better run!! You better run!!” People thought, at first, perhaps he was just playing werewolf--it seemed to be what the other children thought--but it was with the fervor and specificity with which he uttered such a distinct phrase: “Blood Moon,” and how this occurrence became something of a ritual to him, that raised their concern.

But these years passed quickly, and Astor learned how to manage these bizarre impulses. Even though he continued to suffer from these dreams--once in awhile on the night of the full moon--in which the moon would turn red and hang above him, and he’d find himself standing in a pool of blood or swirling black and purple sludge. Monsters would surround him, baring their teeth, but they never appeared to be directing their hunger at him. In fact, with each recurring instance of this dream, he became more and more convinced he was actually partaking in these dreams as a monster himself, even though he had human hands and skin--albeit, ashy-gray. He didn’t quite understand the meaning of these dreams--it alarmed him a bit, as it somehow felt like it was getting gradually closer to reality with each instance--but there was no sort of seer or soothsayer in town who would be able to interpret such dreams. So he kept to himself, swept the floor, and had just started accepting that this would always be his life.  


Until one day, a man in a cloak showed up in the village.

He did not come alone. He was accompanied by two others--a carriage-driver and another man with a similar cloak, although less decorative than his own. Whispers quickly began to rise as someone spied the royal insignia on the carriage and bridle, and people began to wonder what business anyone from Hyrule Castle possibly had all the way down in East Necluda. Before the men even had time to board their horses and enter the inn, Rina, the innkeeper, had caught word of them, and sent Astor scrambling to clean out the best possible room they had.

“Greetings, greetings, hello, hello,” Rina said, giving a short, courteous bow to the men. The fancier-cloaked man shook his head.

“There is no need to do that for us, we ourselves are no nobility.”

“But you are from Hyrule Castle, yes?”

“Castle Town,” he said. “But we work with the royal family, yes.”

Rina’s eyes widened. She was a woman who was quite bad at curtailing her own excitement, and she was currently eyeing them up and down like she had just stumbled upon a chest full of diamonds and rupees.

“And what business possibly could you have with a little place like us?” she asked, with a flirtatious lilt. “Don’t get me wrong, we are _honored_ to have you here, and there are some delightful sights to see, but I apologize if our accommodations aren’t exactly--”

“Something drew me here,” the man said, plainly, cutting her off mid-grovel. Rina stopped, bewildered, as the man glanced around the inn as if he would somehow find the solution amid her cozy-looking curtains and shelf of wines on the back wall. By this point, Astor had come down the stairs, and was lingering with a bucket and a washrag near the railing, keeping a careful distance from the guests. They both watched the man until he stopped inspecting the place and he directed his attention back to her. “I intend to stay here until I find out what it is.”  


Rina stared at him with even more confoundment than before, mixed in with just a dash of alarm. He saw this expression on her face and clarified, “I am with the Royal Order of the Seers of Hyrule.” 

_“Royal Seers--?”_

“I understand you don’t have your own prophet in town?” he asked, promptly.

“Well, no. How about it? Have you come to--”

He glanced around again, this time catching sight of Astor. “Perhaps,” he said. “I just understand that no one in the Order is stationed here. Not that there's anything wrong with local psychics, but most of them are not trained… and I’m sure, as you can imagine, that leaves their prophecies ranging anywhere from semi-accurate to downright snake-oil.”

She laughed, politely, although he hadn’t exactly been making a joke. It seemed more of an attempt to keep his company and affirm his business, even though she was the only inn in town. “Have you come to bring us a proper psychic, then?” she asked.

He shook his head again. “Maybe someday,” he said again. “Although, I get a better feeling that this place may have something to offer to us instead.”

The woman raised her eyebrows, interested. She was beginning to look like a parody of herself, halfway over the desk with her head in her hands. She always got like this when her husband was away. “Well, we can start by offering you men a nice room, I’ve just had Astor prepare--Astor, is everything ready there, darling?”

“Wha--um, yes,” he said. Now both men were looking at him. It felt horrifyingly awkward.

“Your son?” he asked.

“Oh _no,”_ Rina said, quickly. She hadn’t intended it, but the tone and speed of her outright refusal made it obvious that she was at least subconsciously offended by the implication, and, if found to be in any way related to Astor, would disown him at the earliest opportunity. “He lives further up the hill… works here part-time--”

The man approached him. He was large, and Astor--who hadn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet--stood gangly and overshadowed. But he was not afraid.

“Astor, was it?” the man asked.

“Yes sir,” Astor said, quietly, bowing his head. Rina had drilled in him to be seen and not heard, and so he was not used to interacting with the guests, save to fetch them fresh towels or serve them their meals. There was a long silence.

“Astor,” Rina said, frantic at the silence that had now drawn out. She couldn’t risk the boy saying something… odd. “Show these good men to their rooms, please.”

Astor was shaken out of his daze. “Oh, yes ma’am,” he said, nodding. He quickly looked back at them. “I’m sorry. Here.”

Astor led them up the stairs and to their room. All the rooms in the inn were identical, but, if they had anything else to offer, he was almost certain Rina would have given them a luxury suite. The carriage-driver, Jolin, deferred to the two cloaked men--whose names he learned were Thelem and Marcilus--who were clearly his superiors, even though they continued to treat him as an equal. Jolin took the single room, with Thelem and Marcilus taking the other room. After making sure they were comfortable and had everything they needed, Astor bowed his head again and retreated back to the first floor where Rina quickly put him to work washing dishes and wiping off glasses in preparation for dinner.

Thelem and Marcilus spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around town, taking in the sights even though Hateno did not have much to offer in the way of tourism. Thelem just found it refreshing to be out and about somewhere that wasn’t the pensive quiet of the Order, or the chaotic hustle and bustle of Hyrule’s thriving Castle Town. The men were quiet, keeping mostly to themselves, but were incredibly friendly and polite to anyone brave enough to walk up to them. Most villagers, however, were intent to keep their distance and merely gawk at the strangers looming throughout the village from their hay fields and vegetable gardens. Jolin spent his time at the stables, bonding with the locals over all the intricate details of horse-raising. His horses, of course, were well-bred and immaculately-kept, being tied to the royalty of Hyrule.

As evening fell, the three of them returned to the inn where Astor and Rina had just finished setting the tables for dinner. Thelem, Marcilus, and Jolin took their seats together and their own table--there were only a couple--and Astor helped Rina bring out their food. It was a simple meal--some roasted bird with a side of hylian rice and fresh, seasonal vegetables from the village. It was one of the main dishes at the inn served in rotation with a few others so as to not bore the guests who stayed for more than a night or two. Astor had burned the vegetables a little bit, on accident, but Rina didn’t think anyone would notice.

Everyone noticed.  
No one said anything, though, and that was very polite of them.

After dinner, Thelem went out to the deck to watch as dusk slowly befell the quiet village. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver watch. It would be time for evening prayer, normally, but who was going to know if he pushed it back an hour or two? Marcilus was almost definitely observing the regular prayer time in their room already, and Jolin wasn’t part of the Order. But the Vespers, after all, were about the lighting of the evening lanterns, and, as he looked out over the village, he watched the little town, one by one, slowly beginning to light their own lanterns. As long as he mentally recited the prayer, that was probably Vesper enough.

Speaking of evening lanterns, it was at this point that Astor came out to light the inn’s own lanterns hanging on the deck. He politely nodded to Thelem again, and went about his business, but couldn’t help himself from continuing to examine the intricate design on the man’s robes, and now the silver pocket watch he had set out on the table. Thelem acknowledged him.

“Do you want to look at it?” he asked, raising it out to him.

“I’m sorry,” Astor said, snapping out of his trance and suddenly realizing he had been staring. “No. I mean--”

Thelem continued to extend the watch to him. Astor walked over and accepted it. It was a gleaming silver--nicer than anything he had ever seen before--and had an intricate pattern on both sides. Though, on one side it was printed upright, and the other, upside-down. It was somewhat of a star shape, although not quite, and had an imprint of an eye in the middle of it--reminiscent of the Sheikah eye. Above the star and the eye was a flame, and surrounding the insignia, along the edge of the watch, was an intricate design of what was printed to appear like lacing and knotting--the kind one might see on the edges of a royal gown. Astor ran his hands over the design--following the lacing around the circle.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A pocket watch,” Thelem laughed, but he knew what Astor meant. He quickly corrected himself to ease the young boy’s alarm. “The unicursal hexagram. The sign of the Order.”

Astor nodded.

“It’s a shape that can be drawn all in one swoop, and each point represents one of the five elements, with the final point representing Fate,” he said. “Pretty fancy, no?”

Astor continued to admire the shape--both of the pocket watch itself, and the mystical insignia crafted onto it.

“Do you want your own?” Thelem asked.

“What--oh--no--”

But Thelem was already reaching again into his cloak--where he apparently had an inner breast pocket under the first layer--and dug around for a coin. “No please,” he said. “It’s no pocket watch, but,” he extended it to him. It gleamed with a similar silver, although the imprint was handpainted, revealing the lacing pattern to be a brilliant, royal blue, and an eye that gleamed gold. Astor accepted it, graciously, and set the watch back down on the table. Thelem put the watch back into his pocket. Another long silence befell both of them. For Astor, it was uncomfortable--as being around guests always was--but for Thelem, it was meditative. Astor again realized he shouldn’t be spacing out like this--Rina always goaded him about it--and he promptly bowed again to the man, giving a quick, “ThankYouSirHaveaNiceEvening,” before retreating back into the inn, hanging up his apron and heading home for the evening. Thelem watched the night turn dark, enjoying the last few sips of his ale, before he went inside and Rina swarmed him once more.

“My deepest apologies, how was Astor’s service this evening?” she asked. “Oh, I hope he wasn’t being too much of a bother. He’s a little…” she stopped and lowered her voice, but couldn’t really figure out how to politely phrase the next words. “Um. You know.” She pointed her finger near her head and twisted it around in a circle to make the _‘cuckoo, he’s crazy’_ sign. Thelem raised his eyebrows and leaned back.

“Oh really?” he asked. “Tell me about him.”

Even though they were standing about in the middle of the room, Rina suddenly felt as if she was backed into a corner. “Oh, well, um.”

“Really,” Thelem said again. “In what way?”

“Well, alright, maybe that was a bit unfair of me--”

“No,” Thelem said. “I seriously mean it. I am asking you to tell me what you mean by that. Putting how rude it was aside.”

Rina shrunk back, but gave out a nervous, mostly embarrassed, smile. Thelem continued on. “What has he done to make you think so?”

Rina sighed and collected herself, realizing that Thelem genuinely wanted to know and was not trying to check her attitude. “Well, he’s acted strange ever since he was a child. The whole town knows about him. His poor parents. Bless their hearts. Had to put up with quite a lot--”

“Like what?”

“He would--collect--dead things,” she said. “There were rumors that things around him would die. It’s a bit silly, of course, but he never seemed to be able to raise a garden to help his family, which is why he’s now working for me--”

The man leaned back. “Hm. Interesting.”

“He hangs out by this little statue at the end of town--talks to it. He doesn’t really have any friends. Parents say he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.”

“Statue?”

“Horrid old thing out by the pond. Nobody goes out there. It’s an eyesore, really, and I’m glad it’s so far away…”

“Hm,” he said again.

“And, when he was younger he used to chase the little kids around town. Screaming. Yelling things about blood and the moon--”

Thelem raised his eyebrows. That was of interest. “Do you know when all this started?”

“I’m not sure. You’d have to ask his parents. But he’s always been a bit, well, weird,” she said. “I hope he hasn’t been too much of a disturbance to you.”

“Not at all,” Thelem said. But, with the slightest bit of sarcasm--perhaps exasperation with Rina’s overall disposition and dismissal of the young boy--he added, “He’s been on his _best_ behavior.”

Rina did not catch the subtext, and continued to flutter on as if she adored him. “Oh excellent to hear. Well, you let me know if you need anything. I’ll be just round the corner--I can bring you some more ale, or--”

Thelem shook his head. “No, thank you.” Rina shrunk back. “I’ll be retiring for the evening now, thank you,” he said. He started back up the stairs and into his room. That was all he needed to know. The boy was special, and he intended to find out why.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, Astor reported to the inn bright and early as he always did. At the first breach of dawn, when his parents would rise to tend to their animals and the garden, he would walk down the hill and help Rina with cleaning, morning prep, and breakfast. Setting out biscuits, preparing tea and cutting fruits. Thelem and Marcilus were already sitting at the table. Both Rina and Astor were a bit surprised--they were up _early._ Almost as if they had barely slept at all. As Astor politely maneuvered around them to set up everything, Thelem spoke to him again.  
“Astor, was it?” the man asked. Astor was surprised that the man had bothered to remember him.

“Oh. Yes, sir,” he said, reflexively bowing again.

“I was speaking with the innkeeper last night, and I think you would be a great person to show me around the town,” he said. “What do you say?”

“Oh. Um. I have to go to class--” he said, frantic. He didn’t really have much class today, only a short lesson. But he had panicked because no one really ever paid attention to him, much less asked him to do anything that wasn’t sweeping the floor or washing the dishes.

“Well, after class then,” he said. “I heard there’s a statue and a pond you like to frequent. I was wondering if you’d do us the honor of showing it to us.” Astor was still looking at him in a mixture of surprise and confusion, so Thelem lowered his coffee cup and leaned into level with him. “I came here looking for the strangest sites in all of Hyrule. Do you know of anything strange that goes on around here?”

Thelem watched as Astor’s eyes lit up--the boy was on the verge of saying something--but he glanced around the rest of the room, seeing Rina looming in the distance and remembering the presence of other guests. “I’ll… I’ll tell you later,” he said again, pocketing his excitement in favor of the demure he had been conditioned to hold. He bowed again. “Thank you, sir.” At this, he scuttled away--in much the same fashion Rina did--to finish the preparations and pretend he wasn’t incredibly ecstatic that someone else finally wanted to see the pond.

After breakfast, Thelem and Marcilus went out to find Astor’s parents--Thelem was beginning to suspect the boy might have been the reason for their visit--but they needed to know more about his behavior first. They found his parents exactly as Rina said they would--further up the hill attending to some sheep. Astor’s mother was at first startled by their dark cloaks and otherwise looming sort of presence, but when they quickly identified themselves in relation to Hyrule Castle, she was eager to open up about her son, whom she was both terrified and proud of. It was beginning to look like perhaps the arrival of these strange men was a godsend--something she had prayed to the Goddess Hylia about ever since Astor first started demonstrating these strange powers: a place for him to belong.

When Astor returned, he saw the man, Thelem, and the other one, Marcilus, standing with his parents. They waved him over. His mother was smiling, almost wiggling on her toes, the way she did when she was trying to keep a surprise from him. 

“Astor dear, this man says he wants to talk to you a bit more, if that’s okay,” she said. His father, often as silent as Astor himself, nodded in agreement. “They’re from Hyrule Castle.”

While Astor factually knew it--they had mentioned it at the inn--it was invigorating to think that anyone from the castle wanted to speak with him. Hyrule Castle was like a fantasy--something that was hardly even visible from Hateno--and he had never even been farther west than Fort Hateno.

Thelem nodded. “That’s right. I’ve heard your mother tell me you’ve suffered from some strange dreams for years now, is that correct?”

Astor turned away a bit and looked down at the ground. This was the part, generally, when people started making faces at him. “Oh. Um--”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Thelem said. “In fact, we want to help you.”

“Oh,” Astor said. He looked up at Thelem and almost began to smile. “Are you going to tell me what they mean? Can you help me get rid of them?”

“Maybe not get rid of them,” Thelem said. “But I think we can do you one better. Why don’t you tell us about them on the way to this pond of yours?”

The three of them started to walk through the town, with Astor leading them down the hill and in between the two hills near the gate of the village that nearly blocked the pond from view. As they walked, Astor began to carefully formulate how to best go about explaining them, kicking a rock or two here and there as he went. Thelem and Marcilus allowed the boy ample room to gather his thoughts.

“They’re not scary,” Astor said. “Though, they should be. There’s lots of blood and guts and gore. But I’m never really scared until I wake up, and even then, I’m not scared, I just wonder what’s wrong with me.”

Thelem nodded. “What happens in them? Where are you? What are you doing?”

“I think I’m myself, but also… not,” he said. “I have ashy gray skin. Sometimes I’m standing in a pool of blood or black sludge. And there’s monsters surrounding me.”

“What are the monsters doing?”

“Nothing, really,” Astor said. “Just... being around me. But they’re not hunting me. It’s like we’re all there together for something.”

“Anything else?”

“It’s always dark and nighttime, and most often it’s a full moon,” he said. “But every now and then, I’ll be there, and I’ll see the moon rise into the sky. But this time it’s deep red and glowing. It looks like it’s made of blood.”

Thelem and Marcilus exchanged a glance. Not necessarily nervous, just both understanding the implications of what the boy said.

“When I was a kid, I really kind of liked those dreams. I thought it was cool, and I could almost feel when it was going to happen. I’d get this burst of energy as it started to get dark, and it’d make me get really excited and want to chase all the kids around and, I don’t know, warn them,” he said. “But I kind of enjoyed watching them be scared. Even though I know it’s mean and bad. I think they thought I was playing. But sometimes I wasn’t. Sometimes it felt like I was warning them of their doom.”

Thelem and Marcilus nodded to each other again. 

“One time I saw a wild boar.”

There was a pause. Thelem furrowed his eyebrows. “A boar?” he asked. That seemed a bit out of place.

“I think it was a boar,” Astor said. “It had tusks. And it was giant. But it felt very angry, like it wanted to break out of somewhere or from inside something and it was made of that sludge.”

Thelem and Marcilus now looked at each other with brief alarm. But, as Astor was mostly directing his attention to the ground to distract himself, he did not notice.

“It charged at me,” he said. “But I wasn’t scared. And when it reached me, it just evaporated. Like smoke.”

At this point, they were standing at the pond. It was, admittedly, a quaint little place with a bit of respite from the rest of the village. It was serene, idyllic, almost, and that’s why it was so odd to see the pitch-black, hunched over statue with a grimacing face and demon wings--about the size of the Goddess statue in town--lingering over the water.

“It all makes me feel really weird, and I get weird impulses sometimes,” Astor said. “But I’ve just been using dreams to explain it all. Dreams are more normal and people accept them to be weird. But there’s other stuff too. I just learned to not talk about it”

“Like what?”

Astor pointed to the statue. “This is going to sound crazy but it…” he struggled for a moment, even after having explained everything else about himself to the men. “I feel like it talks to me.” 

Astor braced himself for the jeers, like he often heard from the others, but was met with no judgment, only further interest from the man.

“You ‘feel like it,’ or it does?”

Astor hesitated. “It does,” he said, very quietly, nearly ashamed.

“And what does it say?”

“It says it has power,” he said, looking back up and relaxing as he became a bit more comfortable in Thelem’s response. “And that it has power it can give to me. It says it can trade in life and death and power and energy. For money. But I’m not sure how. And I’m a little bit afraid to ask.”

Thelem nodded. “How does it speak to you?” he asked. “Does it move? Turn into something else? Do you see it in your mind?”

“No, nothing like that,” Astor said. “But when it has something important to say, it grows this mist. It’s dark and swirling. It’s very prominent to me, but I don’t think anyone else can see it.” He paused. “I feel like someone would have said something.”

“I have one more question for you,” Thelem said. He paused, and Astor looked up to him, interested, and relieved that Thelem had even met him with such patience and understanding in the first place. “Do you have the same experience when you visit the Goddess statue in town?”

Astor considered this. He hadn’t necessarily made the connection before. “No,” he said. That wasn’t necessarily correct. “I mean--yes. It’s different though. Instead of a mist it’s… light. And it kind of hurts.”

Thelem nodded.

“I never really go over there. I feel like she doesn’t like me.”

“Doesn’t like you?” he asked, with a humorous skepticism. “The Goddess Hylia?”

“I don’t know… maybe not the Goddess. Just the statue.”

“I see.”

“Maybe it’s because I spend too much time over here instead of with her.”

“Perhaps,” he said, thoughtfully. Although, he didn’t much believe that notion at all.

“What does it mean?” Astor asked. “Is the statue cursed? Nobody else in town believes me, I don’t think anyone else can see it…”

“No, Astor, the statue is not cursed,” Thelem said. “The statue is a conduit.”

Astor cocked his head to the side, giving the most confused look Thelem had seen in the time they’d been together.

“The statue is a channel for a spiritual being. You see people pray at the statues, yes?”

Astor nodded. “Yes, all the time. Not this one, but… the Goddess statue.”

“When most people pray at statues, the statues don’t talk back,” Thelem said. 

“I figured…”

“But, what you’re experiencing is not uncommon,” he said. “People with a particular gift can do that. You’ve been chosen, Astor. You have the gift.”

Astor’s eyes widened. Something in him felt freed.

“You’re special, Astor,” he said again. “You possess a great gift. You will have it your entire life. And if you don’t learn to train and refine it, it may run rampant. Plague you with strange dreams, sights. It’s a fine way to live, but it’s erratic. Explains the dreams and strange impulses you’ve had your whole life. But what if I told you there was a way to get to know and use this power, and that others would even come to you asking for your help?”

“That sounds… really cool,” he said, almost with a smile. He looked up to the men, even more eagerly. “Is that what you do?”

“Yes,” Thelem said. “That’s what everyone at the Order does. Some of us are born with the gift, others train their whole lives to obtain it. We have a school where we can teach you how to use it.”

“I want to go then,” Astor said. “Right away.”

“So eager to leave your hometown are you?” Thelem asked. “It’s a big choice to make. I’m not asking you to make it overnight.”

“I want to go,” Astor said again. “I hate it here. Nobody likes me.”

Thelem raised an eyebrow.

“I mean… I tried to get along with everyone. But I hate it. None of them like the same stuff I do. I want to be somewhere where people like me.”

“Well, I can’t guarantee you friendship, Astor,” Thelem said. “But I can promise you a place where you’ll maybe not be so alone. Where many people do like the same things as you, and do it for a living. Every day.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“But it is a big decision, Astor,” Thelem emphasized again. This was, after all, a boy of only thirteen. Thirteen-year-old boys didn’t often have the best judgment, but many others had also joined the Order at thirteen, so it wasn’t out of the question. “It’s not something to be taken lightly. The training you will go through is intense. It’s not like regular school. You wake up and begin training and you only stop when you go to bed. You’ll have to leave your life here behind. I know you don’t like it here, but your parents, maybe any friends…” he paused. “You’ll have to leave them all for a very long time. Maybe some of them forever. That’s why I wanted to speak with your parents before I spoke to you. They think it might be a good idea. But it’s your choice, and it is a big choice to make, for someone your age.”

“No, I want to go,” Astor said. The earnesty in his voice made Thelem certain that he was sure, and serious. “I just have a… I have a feeling about it. I feel like I need to.”

Thelem smiled. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”


	3. Chapter 3

It would be about a four days’ journey back to Castle Town. After double-checking they had enough supplies and rations--although, there would be many places to stop along the way--they departed Hateno Village just a bit after three in the afternoon. Thelem checked and double checked with the boy to ensure that this was really what he wanted, and that he had really done all he wanted to do in Hateno before they departed. But, aside from the teary farewell from his mother, Astor left the town quietly, emotionlessly, and uneventfully. He only requested a brief stop at the horned statue to bid it goodbye. He just felt like he should, after it had listened to him for so many years. 

Shortly after they departed, Thelem reached into his cloak and pulled out a small string of beads. They were a deep black and glassy, but almost with an iridescent glow to them. They started at a hook that could be fastened around a belt and led down in a line to one larger golden bead dangling at the end, finishing with a silver coin printed again with the mark of the Order. Red and gold ties were knotted at the top of the hook and followed the beads down, along with another small ribbon of fabric that was a satin, silvery blue. Marcilus followed suit, retrieving a near-identical set of beads, save for his own ribbon of satin, which was emerald green. Astor watched as they closed their eyes and wrapped their hands around the beads, slowly working their way down the string, stopping at each bead to whisper an incantation that Astor could not make out, finally stopping at the golden bead. At which point, they grabbed the seal in their hands, whispered something inaudible together, and concluded. Astor did not bother to ask, but Thelem noted how he stared.

“Midday prayers,” he explained. “We in the Order have to pray seven times a day. But you’ll learn more about that later.”

Astor nodded.

“Would you like to see the beads?”

“Sure,” Astor said, and Thelem handed them to him. The beads felt just as smooth and dark in his hands as they appeared in Thelem’s--they felt somehow velvety on his skin, despite how they were made of glass. They were still warm from Thelem’s touch.

“Fate is said to be a weaving, or a tapestry,” Thelem said. “And each of our lives, merely a thread on that tapestry. The beads on the string and each of the threads represent stages on that journey, and help mark the incantations we say.”

Astor nodded, running his hands up and down the beads, enchanted the same way he had been at the pocket watch with the seal. He examined the threads that hung with the beads, rolling the silvery blue one between his fingers.

“We’ll get you your own set when we get back to the Order, and you’ll learn how to pray it,” he said. “But don’t worry. It comes with a booklet.” Astor nodded and handed the beads back to him. There was a bit of a silence as Astor drew back in thought. Thelem, of course, was comfortable and accustomed to this silence, but then Astor suddenly blurted out,

“Did you really come all the way here just for me?”

Thelem smiled. “It would appear that way, wouldn’t it?”

Astor paused for a moment, processing this. There were so many things to ask a man who could see the future. “Did you know where you’d find me? What I’d look like?”

“No, not this time around. Although, it has happened before” he said with a laugh. “No, this time my premonition was not that thought out or specific. I wasn’t particularly trying. I just had a feeling if I came all the way out to Hateno Village I’d find something. And it would appear that the some _-thing_ was a some _-one,_ and that someone was you.”

Astor nodded.

“I also just wanted to get away from the Order for a bit. Take a nice little trip through the countryside,” Thelem said. “The work we do is important, and requires utmost discipline, but it gets so stuffy in there sometimes, I swear,” he leaned back and looked over to Marcilus. “How do you think Azelphir’s treating the place?”

Marcilus almost started to laugh, but remained mostly stoic, a bit unsure how to react when his superior was joking about another superior. Jolin, however, let out a roaring howl and snorted from the front of the carriage. Thelem now broke into a laugh, mostly at Jolin’s reaction. Astor glanced back and forth between them, confused. Thelem grinned back at him.

“You’ll see.”

They continued on the route, winding down the road from the hilly peaks that Hateno Village was settled on, into the valley toward Dueling Peaks. It definitely was scenic; not nearly as developed and chaotic as areas closer to the castle, and, even amongst the tall hills that surrounded them, the sky was wide and open. Thelem leaned back and took in the view. He looked behind them and found that he could no longer see Hateno, and that the sky was just barely about to turn golden, so guesstimated they were about two hours or so into the first leg of their journey. 

“How are we holding up, Jolin?” he asked. 

“We should make it to Fort Hateno just a bit after dusk, keeping steady pace,” he replied. “But it shouldn’t be too much of an issue, we’ve still got a fair amount of daylight, and plenty of torches.”

“Of course,” Thelem said in reply.

“And, we’re traveling on a main road. Lots of traffic, no worry about monsters.”

Monsters. Astor had almost forgotten they existed in places beside his dreams. He didn’t often leave the confines of Hateno village, so he had no reason to encounter them. Occasionally, he would go down to the beach, but, like everyone else, he stayed far away from the wooden structure at the other end--where moblins and bokoblins had set up camp. The closest he had been to a monster was once, at a distance, in the woods just outside Hateno while gathering mushrooms for dinner. But they had been distracted by chasing a wild boar, and, thankfully, did not see him.

Shadows continued to grow long, the sky continued to darken, and Thelem turned to ask Astor, “So, what do you like to do in your free time? Since so many people don’t like the things you do.”

“Oh. Well. Read.”

“Reading is a pretty common activity.”

“But not fantasies,” he said. “Histories. Books about monsters, sometimes. Books about rituals--I found a prayerbook, it’s kind of neat.”

Thelem raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re cut out for this kind of work, then.”

“I hope so,” Astor said. “It sounds interesting.”

“So you’ve always been interested in religious study, then?”

“Well, I didn’t really have a word for it,” Astor said. “I like the idea of being a cleric, but I couldn’t devote myself to Hylia.”

“Why not?”

Astor shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t like her.”

Thelem almost cracked a smile.

“She seems too nice.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Thelem asked. “I thought you wanted to get along with others.”

“Sometimes people are nice to me just to be polite, but they don’t really mean it,” Astor said. “That’s the feeling I get from her.”

“I see.”

“I didn’t really want to talk about it because everybody likes her. But I don’t. I feel like she doesn’t like me. I didn’t know there were other options.”

“Well, Astor, there are other options,” Thelem said. “The Order is devoted to a god that isn’t very nice, but who isn’t cruel, either. But what’s important is that they’re neutral, and they reign over all.”

“Who is your god?” Astor asked.

“Fate,” Thelem replied. Astor cocked his head, intrigued.

“Fate is a god?” he asked. “I didn’t realize. I thought it was just--”

“Fate is a force,” Thelem told him. “But we heed it like a god. Because we want to remain neutral in all things so that our prophecies reveal the truth, not the sway of one god or another.”

“That makes sense.”

“Look at your coin,” Thelem said. 

Astor reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin and studied it, running his hands over the painted insignia of the Order.

“Do you see how on one side the sign is upright, but on the other it’s inverted?”

Astor turned it over and saw the same seal, but flipped--with the pupil of the eye now hanging more near the bottom than the top, and the flame inverted, below. The hexagram, of course, was symmetrical over its axis. He nodded.

“That is because there must be a balance in all things. Good and evil are but two sides to the same coin. If we live in a universe in which there are those that are chosen—and we have, ever since Demise cursed the Goddess Hylia, and then the Goddess Hylia decided to pick and choose—there are those who are chosen to do good, and those who are chosen to do evil. Remember that.”

There was a deep, thoughtful pause. It was a reality that made sense--considering his nation’s proclivity for legends and prophecies--but something Astor had never considered before.

“Our sign exists on both sides of the coin, upright and inverted, because we must strive to understand and accept this duality. Free will may still exist in such a predetermined universe, but our prophecies enable us to view the sum of these choices in the same way that Fate does. And because Fate spans across time, fate knows the outcome of our choices before these lots are cast. That is why Fate, and only Fate, can alter the course of history.”

Thelem continued looking out over the dusky horizon while Astor continued to study the coin. He found himself turning it over again and again, but drawing himself more to the inverted side. He caught himself and flipped it over again. Maybe he should practice being neutral.

“I’m getting ahead of myself with the philosophy,” Thelem said. “Don’t want to bore you too quickly. I just wanted you to get acquainted with the idea that—”

A sound of a horn pierced the darkness. 

The horses started to jolt--unsure of where the sound came from. The four of them turned, trying to catch the source, when an arrow shot through the woods. It came barrelling toward the carriage and pierced Marcilus, who fell back. A second one grazed Jolin, knocking him off balance. A third one soared by Astor--brushing its wind across his face. Thelem drew out his dagger and jumped out of the carriage. Astor froze, entirely unsure of what to do.

And then they saw them. A small group of bokoblins emerged from the treeline with clubs and spears--one with a shoddy bow and arrow. Thelem widened his stance, although only armed with a dagger, which would prove barely sufficient at this rate. Although wounded, Marcilus, a former soldier, raised his sword, and Jolin tried to calm the horses. But it was clear Marcilus was wincing, not quite standing upright. And then, in the dark, Astor made out the arrow breaching from his side.

They were outnumbered. Astor was unarmed. He glanced for a torch in the cart. Perhaps he could scare them with fire… it was the only shot at a weapon he had. But he had never fought anything before, and they were his size--if not larger--and definitely much, much stronger.  
He quickly had to get used to the idea of becoming a meal.

The bokoblins were still a bit away--approaching slowly enough that the men began to think they could make their escape. Thelem hopped back up onto the carriage, helping Jolin at the reigns, but just before they could go, stalmoblins rose from the ground beneath them. The horses screamed and recoiled back, jostling the carriage. The stalmoblins carried bats and clubs--reinforced with spikes--much larger than the bokoblins approaching them. The bokoblins suddenly seemed like much less of a threat.

But as the first moblin raised its bat to the cart, it stopped, mid-swing, making eye contact with Astor. Its eyes were nothing but holes in a skeletal frame, but even past this, lacking muscles and flesh, there was an odd sense of recognition in the monster’s visage. It lowered the bat, and the other moblin noticed. The two giants now seemed only interested in Astor--but in a no longer bloodthirsty way. Astor, paralyzed, stared back up at them, dangerously close to the spikes of their bones and piercing of their teeth, while he and the rest of the men in the cart hung on thread. The monsters leaned in even closer, just barely grazing the tip of Astor’s hair, and they began to sniff him. But, no longer like a wolf to a meal--like a dog to a new friend.

After another moment, when it became clear the stalmoblins were not going to harm him, Astor rose. It was just like in his dreams. Thelem and the rest of the men noticed at this point how the boy calmly stood and turned his back to the moblins--something near unheard of--and drew his attention to the bokoblins shaking the cart. They looked up and saw him, stopping with the same sort of recognition. They backed up. Emboldened, but trancelike, Astor jumped down from the cart. He pointed back out to the woods.

“Go,” he commanded. The monsters, scrambling back together, obeyed and fled. He turned back around and directed his gaze at the stalmoblins, who buried themselves promptly back into the ground without even so much as another word from the boy.

There was a silence. Astor climbed back up into the cart. They all took a moment to collect themselves. But after this confounded moment to breathe, Marcilus began to curl in pain. Thelem drew over to him.

“We have bandages in the back of the cart,” Thelem said. “Astor, can you retrieve them?”

Astor, still running off the adrenaline from the incident, turned back and reached for the bag with bandages and other first aid items. Thelem began to inspect the wound, but it didn’t look good, and it was hard to see in the darkness. Marcilus had two arrows sticking out of him--one on his side, another in his leg--and he was uneasy about moving them for fear of lodging them further into something vital.

“We need to pick up the pace to Fort Hateno,” he said, urgent, but keeping a professional calm. “Jolin, are you alright on your own?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“You’ll stay with the cart, and we’ll break here and ride up to Fort Hateno, hopefully in time to get him care,” Thelem said. He looked at Astor. 

“Astor--” he paused, not quite sure what to say about it. “We’ll have time to discuss that later. I think it’s best you stay with Jolin. To keep him safe.”

Astor nodded, Thelem took Marcilus, carefully helping him onto the back of one of the horses, and began to ride quickly into the night. They were out of sight before Jolin and Astor had fully gathered themselves from the incident

“Do you do that all the time, kid?” Jolin asked, finally breaking the silence. 

Astor shook his head. “No, never,” he said, looking back out to the treeline where the monsters came, in a decimated sort of bewilderment. “That was the first time that’s ever happened.”

Jolin stared out back to the trees in much the same sense of fearful wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” He paused again--at this point, just thankful to be alive. “Maybe they were onto something with you.”

Jolin and Astor began checking the rest of their belongings--sorting through things that had scattered. Jolin addressed his wound, which had thankfully only scraped his flesh, and they headed out at a slower--albeit, still very much concerned--pace to Fort Hateno. Jolin tried his best to make conversation with the strange boy in a clumsy attempt to make it less awkward, but between their shock, it was a long, awkward ride to the fort.  
When they finally arrived, they saw Thelem sitting by a fire just outside a cabin off the road. Jolin tied off the horses and went over to him.

“How is he?” he asked.

“Stable, hopefully,” Thelem replied. “He was starting to lose consciousness by the time we arrived, but I think that was just because he has a weak constitution. You know how he is. Psychs himself out. Bit difficult to stay calm when there’s an arrow in your side, and another in your knee. You’d think he would’ve gotten used to that as a solider, but I’m sure he’s a bit out of practice,” He was turning over a couple meat and mushroom skewers on the fire. He raised one out to them. “Snack?”

“No, thank you.”

Astor accepted one.

“He might need to stay for an extra day or two. It got him pretty deep. Lucky it didn’t pierce his lung.”

“For sure.”

“They have some beds for us inside,” Thelem said, seeing Jolin toting the clunky bags. “If you want to put your things down.”

“Of course,” Jolin said, and started heading for the cabin. There was silence for a moment. Thelem stared thoughtfully into the fire, checked the consistency of his skewers, then looked to Astor.

“So, Astor,” Thelem said. “What do we have to say for ourselves when we stare death down in the face and make it out the other side?”

“I don’t know why that happened,” Astor said, quickly. It was reflexive, and defensive, coiling back the way he always had to. People in the village had all but accused him of witchcraft. And even that they had almost definitely done behind his back. “I didn’t do that.”

“But you did,” Thelem replied. This was not a negative. In fact, Astor could feel the sense of awe in his tone.

“That’s never happened before,” Astor said again.

“Never happened before?” Thelem asked. “But what about your dreams?”

“That’s… those are different,” Astor said. “Those are just dreams.”

“Only dreams?” he asked. “Have you ever considered that those dreams might be premonitions?”

Something in Astor seemed to piece itself together in that moment. He settled into the idea, but something about it still seemed off. “But I’ve seen… I never saw myself like that before,” he said. “In the cart. With you all, and the stalmoblins. In my dreams I’m by myself.”

“Sometimes dreams aren’t quite as literal as we’d like them to be,” Thelem said. “Especially to the untrained eye. But who’s to say one of them won’t come true in the future?”

Astor was silent. He didn’t know if he wanted any of them to be true. So he just sort of stood there sadly, watching Thelem turning skewers over the fire.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said. “The feeling was familiar, yes?”

Astor considered this. The feeling was familiar, and that, at least, was not a frightening thing at all. In fact, it was sort of invigorating, to wield that sort of power. It was the way he felt when he ran through the darkness before his blood moons. “Yes, it was,” he said, finally. “Almost exactly.”

“See? You’re a natural already.”

“Except…” Astor hesitated. While invigorating, it still wasn’t exactly comfortable. “I feel like I’m a monster in those dreams.”

Thelem looked at him. “Well, there might be a little bit more to unpack with that, then. Maybe some self-hatred to sort out, too. But that’s common for your age.” Astor felt like he needed to continue.

“I’m myself, I think. I’m still human… I think. But when I look down at my hands I see gray skin. I don’t know if I have blood. But there’s so much blood on the ground, and sometimes on my face…” his voice trailed off. “And the monsters--they treat me like one of them. They recognize me.” He paused, realizing this. “Just like they did today.”

Another silence. Thelem at first studied him, then looked back over to his skewers and turned a mushroom around in his hand. “Well, I’m sure you’ll find the answer to that eventually. Count your blessings. You’ll always be safe at night.” He rose. “But things will go nowhere if we all start to ruminate, especially this late at night. Let’s go in and get some rest. We have a long journey back to the castle.”

Astor followed Thelem inside and they settled into their beds--simple cots used for the military--and Thelem performed his prayers once more. They all retired to sleep, but Astor continued to lay awake, staring up at the dark ceiling. He kept thinking back to the pierce of the monster’s eyes, and how it had stuttered in recognition, and then almost fear, as it caught on to Astor and his scent. He kept replaying the moment between himself and the undead creature--and then even the bokoblins--trying to make any sense of it at all. He wasn’t the authority on monster behavior by any means, but anyone could have seen that there was something between reverence and fear in those monsters’ eyes. And, in any other reality, that should have been the other way around.


	4. Chapter 4

The castle was on the horizon, and it was getting bigger--and more magnificent--with every step.

Once they had crossed Dueling Peaks, it had been visible on the horizon, but now they were at last approaching Hyrule Field, and even from here, it was large. Looking almost like a distant mountain in its own right. Astor at first could not believe the sheer scope of the world itself--it took days to travel places--and then stood in astonishment when they had stopped at the outpost right outside the Great Plateau, looking dumbfounded up at its enormous pillars. Astor was not aware something other than a mountain could even reach that high without toppling over. And now, with each progressing hour, he was sitting more and more upright in his seat, saying not very much of anything, but entranced by the castle on the horizon, and shifting around this way and that to take in all the sights he could see. Thelem took amusement in Astor’s excitement--even in the boy’s silence and generally stoic nature, he was awful at concealing his sheer sense of wonderment.

They made a stop in Mabe Village so Jolin could get some more supplies for the horses, but Thelem was afraid if they stayed for too long, Astor would steal the carriage and drive the rest of the way himself. So they departed quickly, and made their final approach to Hyrule Castle Town.

Even the gates were beautiful. They were dark iron, and the arches themselves made out of chiseled stone that stood as firm and precise as the guards--clad in the royal blue--who stood at the entryway. The outer walls of the town were adorned with flags of the kingdom, as well as Castle Town’s own flag, and each of the other region’s flags: Akkala, Central Hyrule, Eldin, Faron, Gerudo, Hebra, Lanayru, and--the one he recognized--Necluda. The guards recognized the carriage and waved them through without much fuss.  


And that was when Astor saw the castle. It was so large, in fact, that Astor had almost not even realized it was there--it simply spanned the entire backdrop of the town, seeming more like a painting or a mural rather than something that he could theoretically roam around in and touch. Not that he was sure he’d ever get the chance to.

Castle Town was the most sprawling, bustling place he had ever seen, with as many people who probably lived in all of Hateno easily living within one block of each other. People, horses, carts, and animals constantly moving this way and that--children running between the houses, people in elegant robes or soldier’s armor going this way and that. Peddlers on the streets--sellers of hats and bags and watches and watermelons. All deferred to the carriage as they watched it go by--like in Hateno, everyone noticed--and almost feared--the Seers who went by. In the midst of all this activity, Astor was thankful they had stopped and several smaller settlements before this, in order to ease the culture shock.

And yet, despite all its movement and seeming chaos, Castle Town was arranged into neat, orderly rows of concentric semicircles focused around a large fountain in the middle of town and--of course--the castle. And even the gates to the castle were towering--easily as tall as the entire wall that surrounded them. As they made their way through the town and toward the eastern gate, Thelem pointed out various places of interest--places the novices or even initiated Seers liked to frequent in their downtime--and Astor caught sight of a large, elegant structure in the northeasternmost portion of town. It was adorned with elegant landscaping--polished and sculpted trees, another fountain outside of it and a waterfall running down the face of the building with brilliant stained glass to accompany it and a beautiful blue spire on top--Hyrule Cathedral.

They crossed out of the eastern gate and Astor looked to him, confused. Thelem laughed.

“The Order’s abbey is actually right outside the Castle Town walls. We did this for you. You deserved to see it.”

The carriage crossed a bridge and onto another scenic portion of land--much quieter than the town--and thus, perhaps better suited for religious life. They came upon the abbey that housed the Order, which was enclosed by its own gate, and somewhat mirrored the architecture of Hyrule Cathedral--albeit, without the water. Apple trees grew here and there along the outside, as well as some patches of vegetables. They departed from the carriage to enter the gates of the abbey, and Jolin walked the horses over to a stable nearby.

Thelem held the door for Astor, and they both walked inside. Once inside, they were met with three small, but stern-looking statues of women who seemed to guard the door--dancing around each other with a ribbon spiraling between them. Thelem opened a closet nearby and dug around for a moment, retrieving a small booklet and a simple string of prayer beads.

“The first thing you should know, Astor,” Thelem said, placing them into his hands, “is that every day in the Order is marked by seven prayers. These are called Hours. Hours are rituals we observe in order to keep our souls attuned to the universe at every point in the day. You may accompany us in these Hours as a postulant, but we won’t require you to partake in all of them until you formally begin study.”

Astor nodded. Thelem glanced down at his watch.

“We’ve just missed Post Meridiem--mid-afternoon prayer--and so people at the order will be devoting their time to their work or class. It depends on what needs done for the day. But what’s important is that you’ll be here for the Vespers, which I heavily encourage you to attend,” he said, with an illuminating smile “Although it’s a daily ceremony, it is one of the most beautiful sights, and it’s central to who we are as an Order.”

Astor nodded.

“I’ll take you in and show you around. I’m sure everyone will be glad to get to know you,” he said. Before they walked into the main room, Thelem stopped at a small stone bowl of water near the doorway. “This is customary as well,” he said, dipping his hands into the water. He closed his eyes and used his thumb to brush the water across his forehead, eyes, lips, and each of his ears. 

“Any time you come back onto the Order’s grounds from the outside, you cleanse. You should do a thorough cleansing on your own later--we’ll show you how to do that--and you should get accustomed to doing the small cleansing of your forehead, eyes, lips, and ears as often as you can. If you’re lazy, just your eyes will suffice. As we go about our lives, interacting with others--especially clients, who come in in all sorts of moods--we all accumulate miasma. Spiritual impurities. Get too much of it and it can fuzz up your vision. So keeping your instruments clean is one of the most important things of all.”

Astor nodded, dipped his hands in the water, and did as Thelem had.

“There’s an incantation you can utter, but the intention to cleanse is often enough, as long as you’re deliberate about it,” he said. “You can find it in your prayer book. It might be useful to follow until you get the hang of it.”

Astor nodded again, and followed Thelem through the doorway.

Inside was a mid-sized common room with a few wooden tables--nicer than any Astor had ever seen--and chairs with red, velvet lining that matched the carpet along the floor. These details--the carpet, the furniture--matched the ones found in Hyrule Castle, but this was something Astor did not yet know. The Order, however, drew from a slightly darker palette. Where Hyrule Castle might elect for marble or stone, whites and golds, the Order opted for dark mahogany or even black. The sleekly-crafted furniture, in combination with the swooping architecture and dark color palette left the Order with an aesthetic that was both dark and academic--one that Astor didn’t realize he was lacking until he saw it.

One of the men who happened to be walking by with a handful of books greeted them when they entered.

“Thelem,” he said. He was wearing a biretta with a little round pom-pom on top, and the strong, friendly nod of his head that he gave to them indicated that, if he wasn’t currently handling a stack of books, he would have almost definitely tipped his hat to them. “Glad to see you’re back safely.”

“And I brought our newest postulant,” Thelem said, indicating Astor, who was still carrying his bags. Astor shrunk at all the attention in the room that was suddenly on him--even though there weren’t too many people around--but with the bags weighing him down, he felt clunky, and awkward. Not exactly in the best shape to make a good impression. Nobody but him really seemed to notice. “He’ll still have to go through all the entry work, of course, but I have a good feeling about him.”

“Honored to meet you,” the man said, moving to extend a hand to him but, then quickly realized his hands were full of books, Astor’s were full of luggage, and neither of them had a third hand laying around. He gave him another hearty, enthusiastic nod instead. “What’s your name?”

“Astor,” he said.

“Astor, this is Rood,” Thelem said. “He’s another member on the elder council with me, and serves as our resident librarian.” He then looked to an old man in the corner, who was rocking in a chair and reading another book, holding it away from his face, and then closer, and then farther away again. “And over there--that’s Solomn. You’ll get to know him well, he’s the novice-master,” he said. “Technically, we all share responsibility for the novices, but he handles the logistics.” Thelem raised his voice over to him and waved. “Solomn!” he said. Solomn looked up and waved.

“Good to see you, Thelem!” he said, a bit more loudly than someone would for a room of the size. “Is that a new one?”

“Yes,” Thelem said, matching his volume.

“GOOD,” Solomn said, very loudly. “NICE TO MEET YOU.”

“Is Marcilus here?” asked a young Hylian sitting at a table nearby. She appeared to be only a bit older than Astor, and she was wearing a plainer, less-decorative robe than the others--without a hood. By her intonation, it seemed like she needed something from him.  


“No, Hael, he ah--he’s still back at Fort Hateno,” Thelem said.

The others looked around to each other, alarmed.

“What do you mean?”

“On the way back from Hateno Village, we were attacked,” Thelem explained. “Horde of monsters. Marcilus got nicked pretty bad. But by the mercy of the Fates, and this one right here,” Thelem gave Astor a hard pat on the shoulder, “we were spared.”

They all looked to him, confused, save for Solomn, who was still going back and forth in his book, and apparently could not hear.

“What do you mean?”

“Monsters just don’t like him,” Thelem said. “Or, depending on how you look at it, like him too much.”

The girl, Hael, narrowed her eyes, scanning Astor up and down as if she could spot the issue immediately. No issue could be immediately found. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” Thelem said, definitively, as this was the most definitive answer he had. “But I’m sure we’ll find out eventually.”

To Astor’s surprise, even considering Hael, none of them seemed to react to this news with disgust or judgment. Quite the step up from the people in Hateno Village. While they were definitely still perplexed at the news, it seemed to be more out of concern for Marcilus, rather than distrust of Astor’s strange powers, which, while still strange, was at least not out of the realm of possibility for them.

“I’m going to help Astor get settled, give him a quick tour of the place, and get him his robes,” Thelem said. “I’ll see you all later.”

They all nodded goodbye to each other, politely, and Thelem set out down another hallway, where Thelem continued explaining things as they went. The walls were mostly lined with identical, dark mahogany doors on one side, and arching windows that looked out into a courtyard on the other. He explained to Astor the living arrangements--everyone got their own room, called a cell, with a bed and a bit of bare furniture--and that the community was self-sustaining. Everyone took a different job caring for the place, everyone pitched in to do everything, and nearly all their food could be grown on their own grounds. And, that which wasn’t could be easily bought or traded from Castle Town.

They stopped at a door to another room that was hanging open, but Thelem knocked on the door as he entered to be polite. Inside was an array of shelves and chests full of fabrics and garments. Tables with spools of thread, mannequins, containers of buttons. Not chaotically strewn about in an “artistic mess” characteristic of the tailor shop in Hateno that Astor was accustomed to, but rather meticulously--even, religiously--organized. A younger gentleman was sitting in the back by one of two looms, while another sat at a table in the center sewing another garment together. He looked up and saw the two of them enter.

“Cronley, Ilan, good to see you,” Thelem said. They both nodded hello. Thelem looked back to Astor. “Cronley is our eldest weaver and Chamberlain--master of garments--and Ilan, his senior apprentice.”

Ilan gave a wave hello.

“Cronley, if you would, I have a new recruit here who is in need of some vestments,” he said.

“Of course,” Cronley said, rising, carefully sizing up Astor without truly measuring him, and then going to the closet to retrieve a set of garments. He piled the clothes on top of him--three full robes, and the shirts and pants that went underneath, a pair of shoes, and plenty of other undergarments--and briefly went over care and keeping of the fabrics as he went. Astor was astonished at their sheer weight and quality--the quality, perhaps, attributing to the weight--but also overwhelmed at how quickly Cronley was throwing information at him. Thelem assured him, as they left, that there would be ample time to learn it as he went. He helped him carry the clothes.

At last, they arrived at a rather unassuming door--identical to all the others--about midway down the hall, and Thelem opened it and went inside. It was bare, but, like the rest of the abbey, high quality and well-kept. Definitely the kind of place that one would expect to be in affiliation with the royalty of Hyrule. The bed sheets were plain and white, with a single pillow and nothing else. A small table, a dresser, mirror, chair, and bookshelf--all a deep mahogany that complemented the floor. A window over the bed with thin, diamond-shaped grilling.

“This is your cell,” Thelem said. “You can spruce it up however you’d like. I’d recommend some candles. Everybody likes candles. Maybe even a scented one.”

Astor rested his bags on the floor and laid the garments out on the bed. He glanced out the window and studied the grounds.

“I’d advise against anything too distracting or cluttered,” Thelem added. He shrugged. “More miasma.”

Astor nodded.

Thelem looked around the room, seeing that his job was now mostly complete. “Well, I’ll give you some time to get yourself settled, then. Change into your garments. You’ll be wearing them every day from now on,” he said. “Come seek me out when you’re done and I’ll show you how to tie the sash. The knot goes on your left side, and moves to your right when you’re initiated. You’ll get a hood when you’re older.”

Astor unfolded the robe and looked at it. Thelem started back out toward the door. He stopped there and turned back around. “Ah. One more thing, Astor. Our day begins promptly at 3:10 am, with the first hour of prayers at 3:30. Since you’re so new, I won’t expect you to join immediately, but you should make it out no later than breakfast at 7:30,” he said. “Join us for prayer at 6 if you can. In a few days, though, you should get in the habit of joining for the entire morning. Once you officially start your studies, you’ll be doing it the rest of your life.”

Astor nodded again, and Thelem started back out the door, but Astor suddenly stopped him. “Thelem,” he blurted out, quickly, surprising them both. Thelem turned. Astor lost the words. Thelem waited patiently for his reply.

“Thank you,” he said at last. He probably could have said more, but more words would not have been enough. Thelem smiled, though, getting the sense of it.

“You’re welcome, Astor,” he said. “We’re over the moon that fortune has brought you to us.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw:  
> this chapter briefly mentions gore and animal sacrifice. there is no extensive detail about it, however. just a mention

Astor got settled, gradually adjusting to life in the Order. Thelem was surprised at how quickly Astor was ready and willing to join them for the first prayers at 3 am--only after a day or two, Astor was dressed, out of his cell, and processing into the chapel with the others. Even some of the other postulants who had been there for longer than him were still flaky on that part, at best. But Astor was eager to partake in these ceremonies, even if he didn’t yet know all the words, and still was getting the hang of navigating his prayer book.

He enjoyed the abbey’s repetitive nature--each day, the morning bell going off at promptly 3:10 am, when they entered the main chapel and spent the next hour repeating incantations and meditating, giving thanks for the power of the Fates, and attuning their energies for the day. This period, called Lauds, was followed by a private period called Lectio Divina, divine reading. This could be from any number of sacred texts, and they were encouraged to use light forms of divination--ones that even the untrained could master, like pendulum or tarot--to determine which text to choose, as well as for guidance on the meaning. Lectio Divina was followed by yet another attunement period, Prima, then an hour for work, then breakfast. This was followed by Chapter, an informal session of reflection, teaching, and general announcements given by Thelem or one of the other elders, then Ante Meridiem, Meridiem, and Post Meridiem--observations of morning, noon, and afternoon--interspersed with hours devoted to class, work, and lunch. 

And then there were the Vespers. The highest, holiest point of the evening. The first night Astor had stayed at the abbey, he had been sitting in the common room, browsing some of the books on the shelves, when he started to notice it was getting dark. Yet, in spite of this, he did not see anyone going around to light any lanterns. In fact, no one in the abbey seemed to react to the progressing darkness at all. Once the sun had fully set, leaving its shadow and a purple glow hanging in the sky, the evening bell rang out in the night. That was when he saw everyone rise and make their way to a large furnace that was kept burning outside. He followed.

Each acolyte recited an incantation to themselves--in a just-audible whisper--as everyone received a candle lit from the fire, which they prayed over. Astor did not know the words, but neither did the other postulants, and they could not discern what anyone in particular was saying amidst the sea of whispers. From there, following the elders, the people of the Order processed through the grounds, whispering and chanting, as each of the elders lit a lantern placed around the property. They made their way into the abbey--now almost pitch-black, save for places a window or two allowed the fading dusk to creep in--and repeated this process down each of the halls in a call-and-response fashion, as each of the elders would say an affirmation upon the lighting of a lantern, at which point the congregation would reply, _“Illuminate our minds and bring light to our Eyes,”_ then continue with their humming and muffled chants. As they passed through the halls, many of the doors remained open, and each acolyte would break from the procession to enter their room and quickly light their own lantern before returning to the group. Astor did the same, leaving his door open the way the others had. They continued in this fashion down the halls until every last light was illuminated.

At this point, they turned past the chapel and down into a larger, circular room that was otherwise off-limits during the day. The inside was dark, but there were windows just large enough to let light in from the dusky sky, but much too high for anyone to be able to see in and out of the room. This was the sanctum, and it was the holiest, most private room in the entire abbey.

The roof of the sanctum scooped up into a dome--which was cut off with glass at the top, engraved with a zodiac design that laid out all of Hyrule’s significant constellations. In fact, the rest of the room appeared to be one large star map--golden sequences of dots and lines scattered the walls. While it was dark, the room slowly lit up as each member of the Order filed in, lining up against the perimeter. The elders approached further into the room, toward a central altar where a large, spherical object floated above a brazier. Once everyone had come to a rest at their places, the whispering unified into a singular hum that then died into a quiet, at which point Thelem spoke.

He offered a prayer, similar to the ones they made throughout the day, but then, saying the word, each of the elders joined in, and the fire in the brazier rose, suddenly turning a vibrant blue. The object itself began to glow, lighting up a similar blue, and the rings and gears that surrounded it spun around themselves, slowly. Thelem gave another signal and the fire grew even larger over the object, reaching almost up to the height of the dome, before a brilliant light exploded from the orb and a pattern of constellations engulfed them. The light did not burn, and the explosion quickly shrank back and formed into its own, more stabilized globe that surrounded only the altar and the elders. Everyone’s candle was now extinguished, but the room glowed brilliantly. Each of the sconces on the walls was lit in a fire of this vibrant blue, along with each of the golden constellations on the walls, coupled with the ones projected around the altar from the orb.

From here, the elders offered up more prayers, with others joining in incantations like those done throughout the day, but then--by will of Fate--there would often be another vision illuminated within this sphere, which everyone would bear witness to. While there was no such revelation like that this evening, Astor continued to stare in wonder at the orb and the light of the constellations that surrounded it through the rest of the ceremony. It was mesmerizing. He hadn’t ever realized such magic like that was even possible, let alone something that he would one day be permitted to master.

Such a sacred observance was followed by a cool-down period of light recreation and an optional meal, called collation. After that was Compline, the days’ ending prayers, which were quiet and uneventful in the shadow of the Vespers, but that was perhaps better in helping prepare the body for rest. Sometimes the postulants and even full novitiates were not allowed into the sanctum during certain Vespers, but they always took part in the procession beforehand, and Compline and collation after.

After about a week had passed since Astor had arrived, the council--convening during one such private Vesper--determined that this year’s cohort was finally complete, and all the postulants were ready to begin formal study. This, like many other things, required a screening process of its own that began with two weeks’ worth of introductory lessons with Azelphir, the sub-prior, second only to Thelem, and a few lectures from the other elders. Shortly after mid-morning prayer, before the first hour of class, Thelem pulled Astor aside as he was on his way to the room.

“Astor,” Thelem said, putting his hand on his shoulder to glean extra attention. Astor looked to him, dutifully. 

“I’ve been kind to you. And you’re doing well here. But you’re going to study with Azelphir now, and he is not as kind and forgiving as me,” he said. Astor nodded. Everyone knew of Azelphir’s reputation--not many but the more experienced students interacted with him outside of class. And his presence--even when he wasn’t assessing you for something you did right or wrong--was notably intimidating. Even some of the elders straightened up and stopped speaking when he went by. Thelem seemed to be one of the few who was immune to his aura. But the bandage had to be ripped off at some point.

“He may not be pleasant, but he is good at his job,” Thelem said. “And his job is to emphasize to you--and maybe for him, overemphasize--the harsh realities of our work. Don’t let him scare you away.” He gave Astor a reassuring pat on the shoulders, smiling. “You’ve seen a few of your own harsh realities already.”

Astor nodded again, and, book in hand, made his way down the hall and to the postulant study room. The other would-be novices filed into the room, where Azelphir was already standing at the pulpit, adjusting and readjusting his books, scanning the room as the students arrived--for some reason, looking agitated that everyone had shown up only exactly on time.

“Greetings, our newest recruits,” he said with a polite, but pointed, curtness--the way something not-quite-human might. “Some of you have lived here for awhile now, so I’m sure I don’t need to take the time to introduce myself. But, as this is your first formal lesson, let me introduce myself formally. My name is Azelphir, I am Sub-Prior and Sacrist--meaning I am second in charge, and responsible for all of our ritual artifacts--and I specialize in scrying and hieroscopy. What is hieroscopy, you ask? Divination through sacrificial remains,” he said. “That often means entrails. On occasion, brains.”

The young students glanced around to one another, uncomfortably.

“Not to fret, you’ll all have the opportunity to try your hand at that one, if you’re just _dying_ to get your hands wet,” he said, in a deadpan sort of gallows humor. The humor, however, was a flimsy afterthought that did nothing to conceal his demeanor, and that his focus was, primarily, on the gallows.

“Like you, I entered as a postulant in the Order when I was an adolescent, and was initiated at seventeen. Which is young, you should know. Most of you will likely be initiated around nineteen or twenty,” he said. He scanned the room again as all the pupils leaned away to avoid direct eye contact. “Yes. That seems about right. And I suspect we shall retain more than half of you, which is a significant improvement from previous cohorts. Quite the intrepid bunch we have here today.”

The students didn’t like how he was continuously reading them, almost like he could pick their brains for answers like out of a textbook. Answers that they themselves did not yet know. A few of them began getting nervous to even think, just in case he could hear them.

“I have been working here, in Castle Town, as a cleric for the past thirty-two years. And now, let me introduce you to the Royal Order of the Seers, and what many of you all now think you are called to.”

With his own sort of bitter fanfare, he drew down a large screen near the chalkboard that revealed the insignia and brief timeline of the Order.  
“The Order began with Augor Astrahd, who was the first Seer to the royal family of Hyrule. The need for such Seers first arose after the Great Calamity ten thousand years ago. Yes, we are that old.”

He paused, as if drilling them for answers they hadn’t known they would need. Ten thousand years was supposed to be intimidating--and impressive--and it very much was.

“The thought was that if the royal family had the advice of a Seer, perhaps such catastrophes could be prevented in the future. But this was a foolish notion, even from the beginning, for nothing spelled out in Fate can ever be avoided. That is the first fundamental lesson you should learn here: Fate cannot be altered by mortals, nor even by the gods. We only bear witness and profess exactly what we see. Nothing more, nothing less. That is why we call ourselves Seers. Not Doers, not Tellers, not Advisers, not Preventers.”

He lingered on this. They could tell it was a line he had invented, savored, and repeated often. They got the sense they were going to have to repeat it three times as much.

“Despite what the common folk believe about the work we do--seeing the future, warning others about it so they may foolishly attempt to change it--you are going to learn the true relationship we have with prophecy, and our duty to the outside world. It is a heavy responsibility and one not to be taken lightly. It requires training, wisdom, discipline, and years of continuous study. You will devote your life to this. And, once you unlock your power to its full potential, there is no going back. This is a permanent commitment, perhaps even into the afterlife. You should carefully assess your motivations for pursuing this level of power, for it is irreversible, and if you intend to use it in any way for your own gain--in an attempt to change your own fate, let’s say--you are not only abysmally foolish, but the Order is not for you.”

The students were quiet.

“You will enter altered states of consciousness. You will disturb your own sleep, your own health, your own intake of food and water. Sometimes, these things will be disturbed for you. You _will_ see things. Because that is your _job,”_ Azelphir said. “What you see may be disturbing to you. But it is your duty to remain collected and composed in such situations. This is what we will train you for. You will be placed under extreme stress and high-stakes circumstances. You will bear witness to ugly, gruesome realities, and you must learn to accept them without question. You will be required to thrive and excel under such circumstances before you are allowed to become a full initiate. If you are not willing to subject yourself to such demands, the Order is not for you.”

At this point, a few students shifted uncomfortably in their seats, particularly those who were afraid to think. Azelphir paced back to his pulpit. 

“Can someone tell me who our Goddess is?”

The students looked around to each other, silently consulting on the answer to what was almost definitely a trick question. After awhile, one brave--or perhaps, foolish--soul offered up:

“Hylia?”

“Wrong,” Azelphir said, pointedly. “Your Goddess is Hylia no longer. If you were used to worshipping her, or still feel a strong sense of attachment to her, the Order is not for you.” He paused, half expecting one student to get up and walk out right away. “Our Goddess is not Hylia. Nor is it the Goddesses of Old. Your Goddess is Fate now, and Fate transcends the gods.”

He paused, again reading their mixed, but mostly dumbfounded, expressions.

“You may think it to be blasphemous, and even dangerous, for us to renounce allegiance to the Goddess Hylia. Especially as many of us have served as Seers to the royal family, and one of the main purposes of the Order is to train and produce such a Seer. It may seem dangerous because we serve across Hyrule, in which Hylia reigns and monsters under Ganon’s control run rampant. But this is the only way to remain unbiased. Hylia is not a neutral force. And, as seers of Truth, it is critical that we convey the truth, devoid of other attachments. We report the facts of what we see, what is woven into the threads of the universe. What is woven there is not done by the Goddess Hylia, nor the Golden Goddess, nor Demise, nor Ganon, nor any other spiritual being that may exist. The actions of the gods are written by Fate, and not the other way around,” he said. “If this news is hard for you to swallow, or does not sit morally right in your conscience, the Order is not for you.”

He again waited to see if anyone would leave.

“Due to the circumstances required in communing with Fate, you may be asked to do things that are uncomfortable to you. You will, on occasion, need to sacrifice animals. You will gut them. You will read their intestines, their liver, and their bones. If you are squeamish, or averse to blood, and unwilling to overcome this part of yourself, the Order is not for you,” he paused, assessing them. “Blood and guts are not everyday parts of our work--even for a full-fledged hieromancer like myself--but they are a fact of life, and we must handle them when the occasion calls,” he said. “And, on the question of blood and guts, yes, monster parts are included, and you will handle and brew such elixirs yourself. Get used to it.”

One student, in particular, was now especially squeamish, but refused to leave his seat.

“Knowing this, you will be given two weeks to decide whether or not you still wish to pursue study. I advise you use that time to its fullest and do not rush to make this decision brashly. Use your head, not your heart, and consider greatly what the Fates demand of you. For once you begin study with the Order, you will be given access to information that will fundamentally alter your consciousness. Improper or untrained usage of this knowledge can have serious adverse effects. Leaving the Order before becoming fully initiated, but then attempting to use such knowledge and power for your own gain, will only spell disaster for you. We don’t need to pursue action for those who abandon the Order and attempt to use and distribute this knowledge themselves. They bring upon their own ruin.”

There was now grave silence among the students where there had been only terrified silence before. They could only imagine what that kind of ruin meant.

“With all that said, we can still begin study of the light, surface-level history you’ll be required to know before any of you offer firm commitment. Open your books to chapter one. You have an exam on Monday.”


	6. Chapter 6

Everyone on the council had to agree before a postulant was able to become a candidate, and then an official novitiate.

Since the first week of study with Azelphir, three students had dropped, verifying Azelphir’s notion that more than half of the seven would stay. One dropped after the first day--he was from Kakariko Village, and couldn’t find it in his heart to renounce the Goddess Hylia, as the Sheikah were so historically close to Hylia and Hyrule’s royal family. Another made it through the first exam, and, despite getting good marks, couldn’t stand the nitpicky phrasing of Azelphir’s questions. She didn’t want to put up with four--or more--years of it, and planned to pursue a job with Hyrule Castle in other ways. The last was caught dozing off in class.

That left the four: Astor, the youngest, two Hylian siblings, Hael and Kazo, both of whom were a bit older than him, and Myrin, another Sheikah. They quickly discovered they were the largest cohort in awhile--most years had only two or three. Another, several years ahead of them, and close to becoming fully initiated, was the only one in his year. Some years would see no new members at all. For whatever reason, it just seemed as if this year, Fate wanted a greater number of would-be seers ready at her disposal. Numbers did seem to gradually rise, Thelem had once noted, when the earth was beginning to undergo a shift. He did not elaborate on what he meant by this.

There was one final thing that Azelphir mentioned, aside from spending an entire lecture detailing the gruesome historical ways people went insane from misuse of power, that perhaps had scared some of them away. There was a type of training that the Order had developed in order to simulate what the candidates might experience in more intense scenarios. He told them very plainly what this training was like--sparing no details--and explaining that yes, what they would see would be disturbing and perhaps even traumatizing. It was designed to be so. But it was done in order to prepare them for what could really happen in the most extreme circumstances. It was called Forced Consciousness Training, and it was something even the fully initiated had to revisit every now and then, as--on rare occasions--intense, unexpected visions could strike even a seasoned professional. In a world where Fate could decide anything, it was critical to be prepared for, well, anything.

But, aside from those solemn, grisly truths that lurked just beneath the surface--which admittedly caused the students some anxiety, even if they would not admit it to each other--life in the Order was structured, and peaceful. Waking up early, going from Lauds to Lectio Divina, Prima, Ante Meridiem, Meridiem, Post Meridiem. Vespers, Collation, Compline. Repeat. Granted, they got only about six hours of sleep every night--if they mastered the art of falling asleep--but Lavey, another one of the elders, got them all in the habit of drinking coffee. Which might not have been the best for a group of young teenagers, but they were a relatively somber bunch considering their circumstances.

As Thelem had mentioned, the Order was self-sustaining, and so every member was required to do some kind of work throughout the day. As the postulants were new, they were frequently tossed between this job and that--taking turns shadowing each elder until they found out where their talents could best serve. This also gave them a chance to get to know everyone. Astor was at one point placed with Geral, the gardener, despite warning them about his history with plants. Thelem wanted to see it to believe it, and Geral thought the boy was simply unwilling to get a bit of dirt on his hands. But, within a few days’ time, nearly all the petals had fallen from the rose bushes and the produce was beginning to wither despite regular attention, and Astor was promptly taken off of garden duty and never put anywhere near it ever again. He ended up sweeping floors again.

As postulants, they were still allowed some measure of unstructured free time to adjust to life on the grounds. Thelem encouraged them to use this time to explore the town as long as they still were in the abbey to get their work and class done on time. Until they were official novices, there was no obligation to attend every prayer service, and everyone in the Order got at least one day off a week. Most elders and older members used this time for independent work around Hyrule and in Castle Town, and even then, often observed every prayer. Postulants got two days off and could use this time however they pleased. Hael and Kazo were the most adventurous of the four, and so Astor usually ended up following them around, but only after Thelem had taken him aside and encouraged him to get out of the abbey once in a while. He had eventually, although at first against his will.

And then came time for selection. After the two-week contemplation period and another entrance exam from Azelphir, each of the four presented to the council with formal intentions to join. All were accepted, at which point they became official candidates for entry. And while it was looking pretty positive that everyone would be selected to move on to become full novitiates, Thelem stressed them to remember that Fate had many working parts and that--even if all the council was in agreement--a final word from Fate on the day of their Binding ceremony could stop them in their tracks. He walked them through the process, what the ceremony would entail, and even took class time to give them a mock Binding so that they could get the words down, as they would not have their books with them on the day.

In preparation for the ceremony, each candidate had to choose another member of the Order to serve as a “sponsor,” someone who offered a bit of an endorsement of the candidate’s readiness to join. After a week, most of the candidates had picked their sponsors--mostly their supervisors on their daily jobs--but Astor, who was not really one for asking people questions or approaching anyone about anything, still had not built up the guts to ask anyone. Mostly because he didn’t know who to pick, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to figure out who to choose. Thelem noticed.

“So Astor,” he asked him one day after class. “Have you gotten your sponsor yet?”

Astor glanced down quickly, embarrassed. Maybe if he didn’t make eye contact Thelem wouldn’t see him lying. “What? Ah--yes,” he said. “I’ve--been meaning to ask them. I just… haven’t yet.”

Thelem raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Who?”

“Um,” he shrank. “No one…”

Thelem almost laughed. “Why not? What’s the problem you’re having, buddy?”

“I don’t know who to pick,” Astor said. “I don’t know how to figure out who it’s meant to be…”

Now Thelem let out a big, hearty laugh. “You’re overthinking it. Save that kind of work for the big stuff.”

Astor blinked. Weren’t they supposed to always act in accordance with Fate? Thelem saw the gears cranking overtime in the poor boy’s brain and continued,

“It will be exactly who it is supposed to be. You don’t need to divine every single choice in your life down to what you’ll eat for breakfast,” he said. “Just think of it this way: who do you _want_ it to be?”

Oh. Astor paused. Perhaps that was the real reason he had been putting it off. He didn’t really have a particular draw toward anyone in the abbey, save for Thelem himself, but Thelem was the Prior, and therefore had more important things to worry about. But, finding he had nothing to say, he looked down again and quietly said, “You…”

“Well,” Thelem said. “That might be a little bit hard, I’m sure you know. I’m on the council. And in fact, I’m generally the one who leads the ceremony.”

“I know…”

“But, I might be able to make an exception for you,” Thelem said with a smile.

Astor lit up. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” Thelem said again. He began to usher the boy along to ensure he wasn’t late for the next service. “But, you do know this is going to put Azelphir in charge of the ceremony, right?”

They both decided that was a risk they were willing to take.

The week the ceremony was to take place, Castle Town was lit abuzz, but for a slightly different reason: Princess Zelda’s birthday. At the start of the week, the town donned blue, white, and gold banners--demarcating the royal family. Some of these banners, however, had a pink rose printed on the middle of them, and each house hung bouquets of roses and lilies from their door--Princess Zelda-Rose’s two favorite flowers, and her own namesake. The fountain in the middle of the town--right outside the castle--was also decorated as such, and little pink rose petals floated in the water with white bouquets lining the perimeter. Ribbons and banners adorned every lantern light, garlands of ivy twisted around the fences and walls. The whole town, in fact, seemed to transmute itself into every sweet, bubbly girl’s perfect fantasy realm. Because that’s exactly what it was meant to be.

As was tradition, on her seventeenth birthday, Princess Zelda would make her way up to pray on Mt. Lanayru in order to awaken her Goddess Power. Her mother, of course, currently possessed this power, and had carefully tutored her daughter on how to pray and awaken such power--knowledge that, some day, Zelda-Rose would also pass down to her own daughter. There would be a grand procession to accompany the princess out, as well as to wish her well on her birthday and coming-of-age. And, of course, being the _Royal_ Order of Seers, everyone in the abbey was to attend. On the day of her birthday, right after a quite abbreviated morning meeting, everyone made their way into Castle Town to greet the princess and her entourage.

It was crowded. Even more crowded than it had been before, when Astor had first come through, and had only now just started getting used to. Because now, everyone was outdoors and lurking in the streets waiting for the Princess. Certain roads were blocked off in order to pave her way, leaving even less room in the streets than usual. The Order, being of priority, were able to secure a slot further up in this procession and stationed themselves on either side of the road just near the fountain, right outside the gates to Hyrule Castle. Astor had never been that close to the gates before, and now the castle towered even more than before, as the gates themselves were probably just about the size of his old house.

But even before they took their places, people were shifting around--squished, uncomfortably--this way and that, and there were murmurs that the procession was running late. Astor caught bits of a conversation happening between two surly women behind him who said that the brash Princess Zelda had cut her own hair, and now the poor hairdressers had to scramble to get the broad looking presentable. Astor nearly did a double take when he heard the women say such things--perhaps just shocked anyone would dare speak of a princess that way, especially in a way that people had once spoken of him. These women, however, were in the minority, and most people regarded this bit of news as hearsay propagated by a few dissenters in a restless crowd. But, by the time fifteen minutes after the parade was supposed to depart had come and gone, more and more people were shifting more and more uncomfortably, and people were beginning to raise their suspicions.

And then the carriage emerged from the castle.

The carriage was preceded by a group of Hylian soldiers on horseback, followed by two royal guards on their own horses--white mares, as was typical for the court--and then the carriage itself, followed by more guards. Flowers and garlands hung from the carriage in a similar way that they did from the street lights and buildings in town--this had undoubtedly been a coordinated effort. And, as the gates opened, everyone got their first glimpse of the princess on her coming-of-age. 

And the princess was beautiful. Even surrounded by a wall of so many other people, she almost seemed to glow. She was wearing a white ceremonial gown--a tradition for the training in her family--and had the same golden-blonde hair as her mother. But, atypical of what would be expected of a princess, it was cut into a playful little bob that flitted this way and that as she looked around over the people. As it turned out, the rumors were true. The princess had cut off all her lovely blonde hair.

But she couldn’t stop waving and smiling, and it made her all the more beautiful, even over people’s shock. She moved around the carriage so much, in fact, that the guards were nearly hanging out the sides themselves trying to wrangle her. But, at last taking a trip on her own--free from her parents--she was determined to take in as much of the kingdom as she could. And apparently raise the collective blood pressure of the entire royal guard in the process. Some people threw flowers, music began to play as the carriage began its descent and she clapped and sang along to the trumpets and flutes. People called out her name, “Princess Zelda! Princess Zelda!” and she responded to a few of them by their own names in turn as she opened her arms wide and leaned further out the carriage. The guards pulled her back once again. But, even at this, she continued to smile wide and call out to as many people as she possibly could with any variation of “Thank you!” and “Blessings!!” and “May the light of the Goddess shine upon you!!”

There had never been anyone more fit to carry the blood of a goddess. And, watching the princess greet her people in this manner, Astor saw why people might want to worship the Goddess Hylia. The look exchanged between Princess Zelda and her people was one of genuine love and acceptance. Not of the brevity and strained politeness he had been met with at the Goddess statue in Hateno. It didn’t seem like this praise was one-sided, and the people were only there to praise her--it was almost as if she was giving praise to her people as well. In fact, Astor was almost certain that Princess Zelda-Rose would have stopped and greeted every single person on route had the guards allowed it. He didn’t think the same could be said of the goddess Hylia, and it was refreshing to see such genuine enthusiasm--free of judgment and ulterior motives--on another human being.

The procession made its way through the town and out the front gate--some people from the town following the carriage along as it went. The Order stayed put in their line until the chaos began to die down, then made their way back to the abbey in time for lunch. Now, the Princess--someday, Queen--would make her way up to Mt. Lanayru, through the Lanayru Promenade, just as all the daughters that came before her. There, she would pray at the Spring of Wisdom and, by will of Fate, awaken the power that would mark her as the pride and sanctity of all of Hyrule: the sign of the Goddess on earth. That was her right by birth, what the Fates had always designated for her. And now, with the Order’s own novitiate ceremony quickly on the horizon, Astor would--hopefully--be going up a little Mt. Lanayru of his own.

Each of the candidates was given two thin pieces of rope, identical in length to the ones that currently tied around their vestments. These lengths of rope were each of a unique color that had been dyed and selected for them based on their particular aura. They determined these colors in a lesson with Thelem shortly after becoming candidates, learning a very basic form of scrying. Hael’s was a pastel orange, Kazo’s deep green, Myrin’s navy, and Astor’s a vivid fuschia. Astor’s aura in particular demonstrated a few odd qualities that the class noted--while it was typical for most people’s auras to have a mixture of slightly varying shades, Astor’s had manifested mostly as a black smoke with a glowing fuschia outline. The stark contrast in colors was unusual--but again, nothing out of the realm of possibility in an order trained to be prepared for anything--and so some strands of black were also woven into Astor’s thread.

After determining their auras, each of the candidates spent time with Cronley and Ilan in the textile shop learning how to spin yarn and make rope. Cronley--a spindly old man with a highland accent and a long goatee beard just coming out of the salt-and-pepper stage--talked them through each of the steps of dyeing and spinning, walking the lengths of yarn up and down the room and showing them how to keep the threads from loosening and sticking together before being wound. As they stretched the lines of fiber across the lengths of the machine, hooking them onto the gears and cranks that would twist the fibers into rope, Cronley emphasized and overemphasized the solemnity of the process: each candidate was responsible for the weaving of their own thread that would be bound to the Order during the ceremony. It was an honor, he said, an integral part of the Order to play an active yet contemplative role in the work of tying knots, spinning fiber, and weaving. It was, however, a bit difficult for any of them to be either active or contemplative in the process when Cronley kept interjecting, taking the threads out of their hands, pulling them, adjusting them, and straightening them back taut. There was a steep learning curve, but they did what they could.

And thus, with preparations complete, the day of the Binding arrived. The candidates spent majority of the day in silence and prayer. Each of their sponsors helped to cleanse their auras for the ceremony that evening. While there wasn’t much in the way of fancy clothing, everyone in the Order had taken special care to put a bit more effort into their appearance today. Mainly, this manifested in the ornateness of their braids and the amount of adornments they each had in them. Everyone in the Order wore these braids as a sign of their devotion to Fate’s weaving; candidates had only just now started growing out their hair, and Hael’s was the only one currently long enough to pull it off. Thelem helped Astor give his best attempt--as he did have longer hair for a boy his age--but they were still a bit clunky and uneven. And while, over time, everyone in the Order had developed their own signature style, today there were many more intricate variations on these styles, along with an abundance of hair pieces and golden hoops and silver jewelry twisted in and around the plaits. And everyone, save for the candidates, was wearing ribbons woven into these braids of their corresponding color.

Thelem, like many others, was wearing a variant on his typical style, albeit, still relatively plain. Half of his ageing, reddish hair was pulled up into a solid bun, with braids of varying lengths and thicknesses resting atop the unbraided sections, falling over his shoulders from behind his ears. His hair was thick--and always a bit messy--but it was less of a problem because his hair was relatively short in comparison to others in the abbey. After helping to fix Astor’s own hair--giving up on a few unruly strands that always wanted to fall directly into his face--Thelem stepped back, scratched his beard, adjusting the ropes that hung around Astor’s shoulders one last time, and looked him up and down to check that everything was ready.

“Well, I think that about does it,” he said, finally.

Astor didn’t know if he was supposed to speak.

“You can speak, no one’s going to know.”

Astor felt more relaxed now, but still did not speak. Even past this, Thelem could tell he was nervous.

“You’re going to be magnificent,” he said. “It’s all going to be okay. I have a sneaking suspicion Fate will vouch for you today.”

Astor smiled.

“But, do remember the solemnity of this occasion. Once you tie your thread, you are bound to the Order. And even moreso at your Summit, when you become a full-fledged member,” Thelem said. He grew a bit more serious for a moment, resting a hand on Astor’s shoulder and looking him in the eyes. Not necessarily grave, but with the sternness and earnesty of a father telling something important to his son. “At points in your life, Astor, you may be asked to do things. Difficult things. I know I don’t have to remind you to be serious, but remember that today, you’re saying yes to all of that, regardless of what happens. Azelphir is going to drive you hard, but there are other things that can happen too, once you leave the abbey. It’s an honor to see and know Fate the way we do. It’s an honor to be chosen and to have gifts. But it’s an enormous responsibility too. And nothing comes without a cost.”

Astor nodded. “Yes sir.”

“I don’t say that to scare you,” Thelem said. “I say that just for you to keep in mind. Fate is inevitable. It is wonderful and beautiful and terrifying. And it is Final, most of all. Nothing you can say or do can circumvent Fate. So you can either spend your life uselessly trying to fight it, creating more suffering for yourself, or you can accept it. Here, at the Order, you are choosing to take that a step further. You are choosing to give praise and thanks to Fate no matter her decrees, and vowing to live in accordance with them.”

Astor nodded again. Thelem smiled and gave him a hearty pat on both of his shoulders.

“Great. Let’s go get ‘em, tiger.”

As evening approached, darkness fell upon the abbey, just as it did every night in the hour or so before the Vespers. But this time, when the bell rang out and the Vespers began, each one of the sponsors escorted their candidates from their rooms and to the back of the procession. As the elder council was not present, other senior members of the Order took the lead guiding the lights down the halls. Thelem and Astor were nearly last in line--just ahead of Myrin and his own sponsor--as the lights slowly guided them inward toward the sanctum.

Instead of the altar that normally sat in the middle of the room--right under the skylight--the room had been cleared out for a tall brazier of fire that now stood in the middle, the astrolabe floating above it as usual, and a stand with a large bowl full of ashes nearby. Everyone filed in to make a semicircle--rather than a full circle--because now along the back wall was a tall, long judge’s bench where each of the seven members of the council sat--save for Thelem, of course, who was using a stand-in. In front of the bench was a large iron frame--in the shape of the hexagram--that was usually hanging in the main chapel and had been brought in specifically for the Binding. Hundreds of different colored threads hung from it in an admittedly chaotic-looking, but beautiful, ornate tapestry, making it a bit hard to tell at first that it was even a hexagram. These were the threads from all the different Seers who currently lived across Hyrule.

The candidates filed into the room last, lining up facing the bench with their sponsors. Azelphir sat in the center, on the most elevated seat. A place that would normally be reserved for Thelem, and thus, perhaps would usually have a bit more of a welcoming presence than the godlike wrath it currently exuded. He had his usual braids of long, black hair interlaced with unbraided portions--three precise braids on each side that swept up the side of his face and joined together on the back of his head, pulling his entire frame even more sharply upward than his steep eyebrows already needed--and two more braids that hung lower and draped over his shoulders from just behind his ears. But now, his braids were adorned with threads of deep red--the color of his own aura--and with golden rings of jewelry hooked around and hanging from the strands. All others were dressed similarly--with the seven members of the council being most decorated, including the one who stood in replacement for Thelem. With Azelphir staring down at them suchly, the candidates almost felt like they had done something wrong--not unusual in his presence--but today, they were supposed to be judged by Fate alone. Not, as it presently felt, by Azelphir acting as judge, jury, and executioner--despite there being six others on the bench beside him. When all the candidates were positioned, Azelphir began to speak.

“Fate has brought four of you to stand before the council today,” he said. “And now, after weeks of your own reflection, it will give the final word on whether you are to bind your thread to ours.”

He paused for a moment and scanned each of their faces, the way he normally did.

“Sponsors, is it of your discernment that your candidate is worthy of being judged?”

Each answered in the affirmative. As Thelem spoke, he gave Astor another reassuring pat on the shoulder. He could feel how his neck was tensing.

“Candidates, are you of sound mind and in a willing state to be judged now by our master, and willing to move in acceptance of Fate’s decree, regardless of what this means for you?”

“We are,” they replied in unison.

“I will now ask each candidate to step forward before the bench and slate their purpose,” his eyes fell upon Hael, who stood first in line on the far left. 

“Candidate, step forward.”

Hael stepped forward. Her stance was wide and courageous. While it was clear Azelphir was trying to intimidate her, and easily towered over her from the bench, she stared back up at him firmly, refusing to break eye contact.

“State your name and intention.”

“I am Hael, of Mabe Village,” she said. “I state my intention to bind my thread to the Order of Seers.”

“And what reason, have you, for this desire?”

“To see and bear witness to the truth,” she said. “This is the reason for my desire.”

“And what duty, have we, to you, to accept you?”

“No duty to me but by duty to Fate, not through my word or yours, but by will of Fate shall the rope be bound.”

Azelphir banged a gavel twice, in acknowledgement and acceptance of her word, and then said, “We now welcome Fate to issue its final verdict.”

The elder on the far left of the bench rang a bell. Hael, escorted by her sponsor, stepped up to the brazier and pulled a handful of ashes from the bowl. After a brief moment, she held her breath and said a quick prayer to herself. She threw her soot down into the fire. The flames exploded upward, changing color and consuming the astrolabe, which spun rapidly and--when it was once again visible past the flames--turned a light, pale orange nearly identical to her thread. She grinned, excitedly, but did her best to maintain professionalism. The bell rang again, and the astrolabe slowly stopped spinning and returned to a neutral color.

“Fate has issued its verdict, and we of the Order bear witness to its word. Yielding now to Fate’s decree, Hael of Mabe, we welcome you as a novitiate.”

Hael bowed before the council and stepped back.

Azelphir then called up the next candidate, and they repeated the process for Kazo, at which point the flames turned green and illuminated the astrolabe similarly. Kazo bowed, stepped back, and then all attention fell upon Astor. His mouth was dry. He swallowed. Thelem’s hand tightened on his shoulder, as he could feel the poor boy nearly shaking.

“Candidate, step forward.”

Astor stepped forward. He tried to ground himself by focusing inward on Thelem’s hand on his shoulder and the ropes hanging there. He stared back up at the council, not nearly as intrepidly as Hael had. Thelem had told him this whole time to be confident, that everything would be fine, and that, more than likely, Fate would allow him into the Order. But what if they were wrong? What if it didn’t?

“State your name and intention.”

Astor tried to swallow again, but it didn’t help any. Focusing inward just made him more aware of how dry and tacky his tongue was. “I am Astor, of Hateno Village,” he said, past this. “I state my intention to bind my thread to the Order of Seers.”

“And what reason, have you, for this desire?”

“To see and bear witness to the truth,” he said. “This is the reason for my desire.”

“And what duty, have we, to you, to accept you?”

The words would not come. 

For a moment, he didn’t realize he had lost them. And then, when he caught the sound of the growing silence--the walls that felt like they were closing on him--he realized they were gone. He was grasping at vapors that had long since disappeared. His mind was blank. He didn’t know what to say.

But then, this cool wave of feeling rushed over him. All the nerves released themselves from his body, and he stopped shaking. Even Thelem noticed the boy’s inward change. He straightened up as he was filled with a sudden icy sureness, a peace. And though he did not know the correct words, he knew other words to say. He stared up to Azelphir, almost in defiance, and said, boldly,

“Because Fate has decreed it.”

There was a silence.

And while there had been nothing but silence in the room prior, it grew deader and more silent now as air was sucked from the room while everyone held their breaths. Thelem shifted back and forth, not uncomfortably, but more in a way to keep himself from laughing as Azelphir stared back down at them confounded, with his mouth hanging open. It was the most shocked, pearl-clutching expression Azelphir had made in a good, long while, and Thelem knew how much Azelphir was one to clutch his dear pearls. But, in spite of Thelem’s enjoyment, when this continued for a moment longer, everyone began to glance around the room to each other, nervously. Astor’s confidence waned. Azelphir, still collecting himself, simply waved on the bell-ringer as if stricken by a terrible ailment. The bell-ringer, while confused, eagerly complied, not wanting to risk disturbing Azelphir further.

Astor, now shaking again, reached into the dish full of ash and grabbed a handful. He sucked in his breath, winced, and threw the soot down into the fire. The brazier exploded into black flame, consuming the astrolabe which again spun around and began to glow bright fuschia--a kind of purple-magenta that matched his own thread. As the black flames receded, they sparked out in the same purple halo before returning to their neutral state. The room was still silent, but now in an awed sense of understanding. Azelphir continued to stare--as everyone did--but knew it was his turn to speak. His voice was quiet.

“And so it has.”

A collective relief of tension swept over the room--from Astor, most of all. Azelphir hesitated again, but knew he must continue on with the ceremony. “Yielding now to Fate’s decree... Astor of Hateno, we welcome you as a novitiate.”

Thelem patted Astor on the back again and Astor, relieved, gave a bow and stepped back.

“Lucky that you are,” Azelphir said under his breath, loud enough for most people to hear. He readjusted in his seat and turned to Myrin, swinging the ceremony back into its normal pace.

Now, all having been selected, each of the candidates took their preliminary vows--a set of smaller, temporary oaths that they would have to renew every two years--with their threads bound around their right hands. Each sponsor then anointed their candidate’s forehead with myrrh, holy oil that was supposed to help them in purification and in awakening their connection to Fate. While he spread the oil across Astor’s brow, Thelem muttered the traditional prayer, then saw how Astor’s face was still wavering and smiled, warmly.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

Astor smiled. If Thelem didn’t mind the mistake, Azelphir’s opinion hardly mattered.

The candidates turned back again to face the council.

“Candidates, now that Fate has spoken, you are now invited to come forward and tie your thread onto our framework,” Azelphir said, indicating the hexagram that stood at the foot of the bench, containing the threads of every single person alive in the Order.

“The hexagram, you know, is the sign of the Order--each of the points representing a different element: earth, wind, air, fire, and spirit--with the last, presiding over all, being Fate. These are the laws that bind us all, unequivocable, inviolable forces that govern our reality,” he said. “As you bind your thread to the sign of the Order, be mindful of your vows and cognizant of the fact that from this moment on, your life is conjoined to Fate and to the rest of the Order. Even in the unlikely event that you choose to leave, or otherwise violate your oath, your thread will remain bound to this tapestry as a mark of the finality of Fate’s decree and the irreversible impact our choices have on each others’ lives. Today, you have chosen--and Fate has decreed--that you shall bind your thread to the Order of the Seers. And, from today on, there your thread will remain until it is severed upon your death.”

There was a brief, contemplative pause.

“Each candidate may now step forward and bind their thread to the Order of the Seers.”

Guided again by each of their sponsors, the candidates walked up, one by one, and tied their thread onto the tapestry. There was no rhyme or reason about whose thread should be tied where--each candidate simply moved to the place they felt drawn to and tied accordingly. Thelem helped Astor slide some of the knots along the frame to make room for his own, and, as Astor tied, he thought about all the seers that were bound to the Order. How every single one had made their ties here, and all that hung there currently. He wondered for a moment where Thelem’s own thread was, if it happened to be nearby, and if tying the thread in a particular place--next to a particular person--had any sort of greater implication about the seer’s place in life, and if he would be able to see it during prayers when it was back hanging up in the chapel again. He wondered if everyone tried to find their own thread in the tapestry during prayer every now and then. He thought about his vows, too, but he had been doing a lot of that recently. Picturing his thread finally hanging from the tapestry felt like a bit of a relief. He just told himself to not wonder what happened if the knot was too loose, and his thread one day slipped from the frame.

Once all the threads were tied, the candidates stepped back into their line. Azelphir spoke again.

“What is done cannot be undone, and now Fate has drawn itself to its inevitable conclusion. So it is written, so it shall be, and we praise the Fates who make it so,” he said. “Being so, we welcome you all on your journey within the Royal Order of Seers, praying that you grow wisdom in your path and illuminate Fate as it deems fit. May you learn to accept what is written, and bow to Fate with grace and diligence.”

Each of the novitiates bowed in unison. “So it is written, so it shall be. May my thread serve its purpose, and my eyes bear witness to it.”

“The ceremony is concluded. May you be a witness and a vessel in whatever way Fate decrees.”

At this, everyone in the Order responded again with “So it is written, so it shall be,” and there was a pause. After a moment, Thelem stepped away from the line and started clapping. A few others slackened their postures and began to laugh and smile, and gradually more joined in.

“Congratulations, novitiates!” he said. Azelphir, from the bench, somehow looked slighted that his time in charge was now up. “We’re so happy you’re all here, and that you all get to stay with us! Tomorrow, the real work begins. But for tonight, I believe some celebration is in order.” He stopped for a moment and assessed the room, taking in the relief and happiness he saw in each of the new novitiates’ faces. “We’ll finish up here with a prayer or two and enjoy some food we’ve got prepared in the great hall. Compline is cancelled. Conclude your day how you see fit.”

“What--” Azelphir said from behind. Thelem turned back around and looked at him.

“Compline is cancelled. Pray how you see fit.”

Azelphir had already spent all his shocked expressions for the day, so he yielded to Thelem, who concluded Vespers the way he normally did, and everyone filed back out into the hall, shaking hands with and congratulating the novitiates. There, a few people played music while everyone enjoyed the array of foods--somewhere in-between an elaborate collation and a fully fleshed out meal--while Cronley went around to each of the novitiates and gifted them a small lucet: a simple, hand-held device used in making braids, often used in prayer and meditation in the abbey. Along with this, each officially got their own thread to attach to their prayer beads. Astor, mostly still hanging around Thelem, was actually beginning to enjoy his time in the little feast, but Azelphir wasn’t exactly done being upset.

“Plucky little stunt you pulled there, boy,” he hissed, coming up to them. “You’re fortunate that worked in your favor.”

Thelem frowned. “Azelphir,” he said. “Now isn’t the time for this.”

“He should not pretend to know Fate when he’s done nothing to consult with her.”

“Well, he was correct,” Thelem said. “As is to be expected of him by the time he leaves the program. He’s made his first accurate prediction already.”

Azelphir was silent, but his fury was very, very loud. Astor learned that day that there were ways to spit curses without words.

“Don’t get your feathers so ruffled,” Thelem said again. “You forgot your name on the day of your Summit. Your own name.”

A few people who happened to be standing nearby almost laughed. Astor included.

“Everyone gets nervous from time to time. Leave the boy alone. He’s thirteen.”

Azelphir again stared daggers down at Thelem, who always did nothing but exude impenetrable peace and calm, and found he could make no such incisions. He glared at Astor again, but, in the presence of Thelem, quickly retreated. Astor knew he’d have to deal with Azelphir in class tomorrow, away from the shroud of Thelem’s protection, but for the moment, he was thankful that, if no one else, he’d at least have Thelem there to support him. And, as a person who had never really felt accepted by anyone for anything, that was all that really mattered.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw:  
> this chapter features depictions of graphic violence - blood, guts, and gore
> 
> also animals (monsters) being sliced up and gutted

Azelphir called him over one day after class.

The other students exchanged glances with each other as they got up from their desks and started walking out of the room. Astor was too nervous to even look at them--he had known this moment was coming, but the words still seized him where he stood. It appeared Azelphir had intended to give him a false sense of security by not addressing him the following day, but had far from forgotten what happened at the Binding. Astor rose and began to approach, but stopped as Azelphir headed out the door.

“Follow me,” he said, shortly. Astor turned, and hesitated, and Azelphir noticed how he waited to follow. “You aren’t in trouble.”

A wave of relief rushed over Astor and slackened his muscles enough to allow him to move, but, as was the case with most meetings with Azelphir, there was a profound element of tension separating him from everyone else.

There was a long, awkward silence as Astor followed Azelphir down the hall. While everyone in the Order’s cloaks were dark and billowing, somehow, Azelphir managed to wear it with even more severity than the rest. This, in combination with his terseness and overall disposition, often gave him the presence of a centuries-old harbinger of death come to reap the souls of the innocent.

At last, however, Azelphir broke the silence.

“Thelem said that I should be making a better effort to get along with you,” he said. There was a pause. Astor looked up to him, curiously, while in the silence, Azelphir gathered his words. “And I agree with him.”

The words struck Astor with an odd sense of bewilderment. To think that Azelphir would even begin to admit to such a fault in himself. Though, by the tenseness in Azelphir’s posture--and the way he pursed his lips as he made the words--it was clear he was still struggling with it, almost as if justifying his actions to himself.

“It’s true you have a lot to learn, and if it had been up to me, there certainly would have been repercussions for what you did at your Binding--”

“I didn’t mean it...”

“Don’t interrupt me, boy,” Azelphir snapped. “If you didn’t mean it, you shouldn’t have said it.”

Astor put his head down. He was silent.

Azelphir sighed, rolling his shoulders back, and readjusted himself again, keeping in mind Thelem’s words. Patience, kindness. The boy was thirteen.

“Regardless… you were correct. Fate had determined it would be so, and most likely determined you would utter those very words yourself,” he said. “You are fortunate, as disrespectful as it may have been. It’s well behind us now.”

Another pause. That was as close to an apology as they were ever going to get.

“That isn’t why I called you over, however.”

Astor looked back up to him.

“You are young. You are the youngest recruit we have had in the Order in awhile,” he said. “As such, perhaps I should extend a bit more understanding to you. And, after some careful consideration, Thelem and I have determined it best if I were to take you under my wing.”

Astor glanced out away from him and into the courtyard--at first wondering if he had even heard Azelphir correctly--then wavered back and forth as he tried to connect the dots between Azelphir’s displeasure at him to the mentorship Thelem was now endorsing. After another moment, Azelphir could tell the young boy was having a bit of trouble processing the information, and so he stepped back in to explain.

“You are going to assist me in Sacristan duties,” he said. “Which will, of course, involve taking care of all our sacred artifacts and preparing items for lessons, daily services.”

At this point, they were standing by a small wooden door just outside the main chapel. Astor had seen people pop in and out of the door a few times to grab things, but figured it wasn’t much more than a supply closet. Now, it appeared, it was a _fancy_ supply closet. Inside were stacks full of familiar accessories--sticks of incense, charcoal, resin, several of the small, golden bottles filled with anointing oil. A few silver metal goblets, holy water, a tidy stack of white cloths for cleaning.

“This is where we keep extra supplies for meditations, cleaning, daily rituals,” Azelphir said. He then explained to Astor how to prepare supplies for each of the Hours--on the inside of the door was a very handy list detailing each Hour and all of the objects required for the service. There were diagrams of how each altar was to be laid out, placement and numbering of candles, censers for incense. There was even a specific order the candles had to be ignited and snuffed out. He led Astor into the main chapel, where he showed him another door to a room that Astor hadn’t necessarily been able to see before, as novices generally stood near the back during services. Inside were candles. More candles than Astor ever thought anyone would know what to do with.

After a further tour of the sacristy--in which Azelphir explained how to track and chart the placement of different objects, candles, and their functions--he led Astor back down the hall and toward the sanctum. They both used the water sitting outside in a basin to cleanse their hands, and Azelphir further procured a bottle of holy oil that they rubbed into their foreheads and hands before entering. It felt odd--nearly sacrilegious--for Astor to enter such a place in the daytime. But, seeing as Azelphir had not only helped him cleanse, but also held the door for him, as bizarre as it seemed, Astor knew this had to be a perfectly normal part of the process. Especially now, as he was to be Azelphir’s assistant. But still, seeing the room fully lit in regular daylight, rather than in the twilight glow of the lanterns--and the astrolabe resting lifeless on the altar in a completely underwhelming, non-assuming sort of way--it felt a bit like walking into an old god’s house in the middle of the day only to discover that even the gods have tables and chairs and typical household clutter, exactly like everyone else.

Azelphir approached the orb, which, at the current moment, looked more like a useless gear than a sacred relic, and lifted it up to inspect it. “You’ll all be learning in-depth about this later, but I suppose you know what this is?” he asked.

“It’s um…” Astor replied. “The astrolabe? We use it in rituals…”

“You’d be partially correct,” Azelphir said, craning his neck around to check how the orb reflected the light in the sun from the windows. “This astrolabe is an ancient piece of technology crafted by the Sheikah to chart the Earth’s heavenly bodies. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now how it’s able to project images of the constellations.”

Astor nodded.

“Our heavens, like everything else, were crafted at the hands of Fate, and, as such, reveal her workings,” Azelphir said. “We read the stars to commune with Fate, like many other forms of divination. But the stars are a larger force, for they surround us constantly and their relationships to one another have bearings on all of our lives. By reading them, we understand large-scale arrangements Fate has set in motion. The Sheikah, of course, were the first masters of this art. As such, their machines, to this day, is some of the finest methodology we have for viewing.”

“But I thought the Sheikah used their machines to communicate with Hylia,” Astor said.

“Again, you are correct,” Azelphir said. “But fortunately, the stars reveal universal truths not swayed by the gods that anyone is free to interpret.”

Astor nodded.

“Like many of the Sheikah designs, the astrolabe is made to interact with other technology,” Azelphir said. “There is an astral observatory in the Hyrule Castle that maps a similar layout. The astrolabe functions as a control unit to things such as the observatory and Sheikah Guardians, if you’re familiar with them.”

Astor furrowed his brow, wondering where he had heard the term before, but an answer would not immediately come. 

“More ancient technology,” Azelphir said, seeing his confusion. “They are protectors of the kingdom and the royal family. Not many of them are known to have survived the Great Calamity, but there are a few working relics here and there. They aren’t much of our concern, however.”

Astor nodded.

“Operating the orb takes a special type of focus, something you will learn about later,” he continued. As he said so, he took the astrolabe in hand and it began to glow blue, rising above his palm. There, he waved his free hand around it to examine the parts as they moved. He leaned in carefully, twisting it here and there as he checked it for imperfections. “Mostly, though, as this is one of our most sacred artifacts, that responsibility is left up to the elders. Namely, myself and the Prior.”

Azelphir continued to study it as Astor listened and watched him carefully, wondering how specific and detailed he was going to have to get about taking care of it. If he had to guess, probably very much so. Azelphir continued to explain its functions as he examined it.

“The astrolabe has three gears that correspond to different paths that our celestial bodies follow. It also has an outer gear which displays the time the stars align as such, and can be turned accordingly to project images at a certain time, date, location, et cetera,” he said. “You’ll all learn the intricacies of it later, but that is the abbreviated version.”

Astor nodded.

“The astrolabe is central to our work in the Order, and a few others exist in some of the more important sites. One for the cleric who operates the Temple of Time, another for the seer in Hyrule Castle,” he said. “And, as such, anyone who becomes the seer of the castle must learn to attune their spirit to it completely, as they do not have the luxury of drawing upon the energy of others as we do in the Vespers.”

Astor nodded again, Azelphir continued to verify it was working properly. He lifted it up higher, making another motion with his free hand as the inner orb suddenly grew brighter, twisting faster and faster before projecting a small dome of constellations around his hand. Azelphir peered into the inside, where it now projected a small overhead image of Castle Town. There was not much of interest to note--he had only programmed it to show an hour or so ahead--but he did notice there was a bit of a smudge in the lens...

“It appears to need some polishing up,” he said. “Astor, would you fetch some myrrh from the other room?”

Astor retrieved the oil, which Azelphir used to polish the inner sphere. After wiping it off with one of the white, gold-embroidered cloths kept just for cleaning artifacts, Azelphir again raised the sphere and projected the image, now seeing it much clearer and brighter than before. He showed Astor the arrangement of candles for the Vespers--but, as they were generally the only thing the sanctum was used for--there was not much else in the way of upkeep. By the end of his little orientation, Astor was beginning to appreciate truly just how many candles must have existed in the abbey alone. And soon, he had a feeling he’d have to account for every last one of them. It was at least a refreshing change in pace from sweeping floors.

Months passed, and the students were getting well along in their training. The boys’ hair began to grow out longer, allowing them to finally get the hang of styling their hair the way older members did, and slowly each novice was developing their own style. Astor at first tried to fix his hair like Thelem’s, but his own hair--which was significantly straighter and thinner--would not gather into a bun in quite the same way, and so he ditched that idea in favor of doing something about the bits of hair that tended to hang skewed and twisted down into his face. After some patience and experimentation, he coaxed the strand into a thin braid that he pinned above his ear for now, and planned to find something better to do with as it grew out fuller. Thelem gifted all the students with a few hooks and clips so they could begin experimenting with their preferences. It was the one part of the Order steeped in nothing but personal expression.

Over the weeks and progressing months, the students tried their hand at all of the major forms of divination, as well as a few of the more obscure ones. Tarot, abacomancy and aleuromancy--the dropping of dust and flour--palm reading, pendulum, astrology, and scrying--on water, crystal balls, and mirrors. Libanomancy and capnomancy--by the use of incense and smoke--augury, of birds, and ceroscopy--with wax and water. In fact, Thelem explained that truly, nearly anything could be used for divination in a pinch, but it was best to stick to the big ones. A good pendulum reading in combination with cartomancy or tarot would satisfy most people on short notice. They were by no means masters of any of them yet, but novices each had their own pendulum and tarot deck that they used religiously, as those were the two it was easiest for even hobbyists to learn.

Toward the end of the year--as days began to grow shorter and leaves fell from the trees to stay there and rot, making the grounds of the Order appear ashy and barren--Azelphir, accompanied by a few knights from Castle Town, took the students out to gather monster parts for potions. By now, everyone in the abbey had heard about Thelem, Marcilus, and Astor’s run-in with the monsters when Astor had first arrived in town, and people halfway expected something similar to happen again. With the help of the soldiers, however, they were all kept a safe distance from any monsters while Azelphir demonstrated a small protection technique psychics were able to use by aligning and controlling their energy. None of the students were strong enough to use it yet, however, although Astor came the closest by managing to summon a few brief, just-visible sparks of purple from his hands, which received a few side-eyes from the other students. _Of course_ the Prior and Sub-Prior’s pride and joy, Assistant Sacrist, mysterious-child-prodigy and queller-of-monsters would be somehow capable of mastering the power it took trained magicians years to manifest. The only redeeming quality of the moment was that Azelphir gave him next to no praise for it at all. It might as well have not occurred.

After returning to the abbey that evening--during a rather stomach-turning lesson in which he also introduced them to the prospect of gutting monsters by hand--Azelphir began to tell them about potion-making. This, he did while demonstrating how to cut a bokoblin from tail to chin--running the knife carefully along its body so as to not pierce the organs--then rolling up his sleeves, peeling back the skin, and reaching inside for the esophagus, a portion of which he promptly cut off and laid out on the table. Kazo nearly fainted, the others looked away, and Azelphir either did not notice or did not care about their discomfort as he then took a spoon-like instrument and dug into the creature’s eye sockets, cutting at the muscle to detach them from its skull. He pressed the rounded end of the spoon down to the eyeball to flatten it, squeezing its juices out onto a tray, as he quickly explained how to distill and ferment the eyes for various uses. He took the other viable eyeball in hand and reached it out, asking if anyone else would like to try. No one took him up on the offer.

The students took turns glancing away in horror as they watched Azelphir carve into the once-living creature just as he might have been chopping vegetables for a stew. He was getting much too ahead of himself and perhaps just a bit too excited about all the gritty details of ritual disembowelment--which he began to realize--and told them not to fret too much about memorization. This would be just the first of many adventures they would have in gutting creatures--both for divination _and_ for elixir-making purposes--and there were books upon books of guides and recipes to help them. This did not exactly comfort the students, but, as this was the most animated they had ever seen Azelphir be, it was perhaps a good reminder never to cross him.

With that mildly-traumatizing event now behind them, the students braced themselves for the real impact: Forced Consciousness. Azelphir had explained to them that the bokoblin eyes were one of the many ingredients used in the elixir, and this had been the reason for their excursion. And then, after a generous--if slightly concerned--pep talk given to the students by Thelem the night before, the students rose at twilight and filed into one of the many divination rooms--tense, silent, and nervous.

Inside, Azelphir stood at the head of the classroom, as usual, now accompanied by a table with four vials filled with a golden-brown liquid not dissimilar to tea, if a bit darker. A clear glass scrying crystal rested on a velvet pillow on the table in the front of the room--one chair on each side arranged in profile so the students would be able to see both the diviner and the querent at the same time. The curtains were closed so that the only light in the room came from the few sconces on the walls and the candles on the table. The students took their seats--all too uneasy to approach the scrying table, and praying that the darkness could cover their expressions. Azelphir began to speak.

“Greetings, students,” he said. “Excellent to see you all here so bright and early. Not that you had much of a choice.” He almost gave a sour grin. “Today is the day I know you’ve all been waiting for. Fear not, I anticipate this all going quite well, but, just in case, Thelem has instructed me to let you have the rest of the day off. Be grateful for him, for he is merciful to you, and I am not.”

The students refrained from exchanging glances with one another. They wondered how often Azelphir caught them doing so, but knew deep down the answer was all the time.

“You all are fast approaching the time when you will be required to read for others, aside from the work we’ve been doing in class,” he continued. “As such, you are therefore fast approaching points at which anything may happen. Points at which things happen outside of the controlled environment we provide in the classroom. Today, we begin training you for such events.”

Azelphir strode over to the four vials, where he lifted the first one and examined it. There was a label for each, but from here, the students could not read what was written on them.

“This elixir I have brewed for you is the standard potion used to force your consciousness into specific, predetermined states,” he said. “Each of these elixirs is programmed to give you a vision that I have crafted, and an altered state of consciousness associated with it. I’ve gone easy on the altered states part today, as this is your first exposure to the training, and the visions are often disturbing enough to get newcomers in a frantic state.”

That wasn’t promising news.

“I’ve brewed it into a tea to make it a bit more palatable for you, although, the mixture is still incredibly bitter, so be warned,” he said. He paced closer to the students, as he could see them starting to shrink back into their seats. “The elixir will produce highly specific images that are indistinguishable from reality. While each of the visions, I assure you, is completely fabricated, it will not appear so in the moment, and you will be required to report exactly what you see--just as you would in a real divination scenario.” 

He took a long pause, studying the vial again. “And, if you’re wondering, no, I would not recommend attempting to brew this concoction yourself and take it recreationally. Without a specific image to filter the experience through, you will, to put it shortly, have anything but a good time,” he said, pleased for a moment at his own weird joke. “But, if you’re just dying to play your hand at guessing the recipe by poking around at the poisons we have in the apothecary, by all means, be my guest. Just remember we aren’t liable for your insanity or death.”

It always went back to those two, didn’t it? 

“Each of you will come up to the scrying table, one by one, and read for your fellow classmates,” Azelphir said. “You will drink the elixir and feel it take effect. At which point, you will begin to scry, and report to them exactly as you see, just as if you were dealing with an actual querent.”  
He paused for a moment, seeing through their apprehensive faces that they at least understood what was about to happen.

“I will emphasize again that you must spare no details. These images will be disturbing to you. They will greatly distress you and your classmates--they are designed to do so. But, as a seer, it is your duty to get outside of yourself and report only what you see, exactly as you see it. Your own thoughts, feelings, and anxieties on the matter must not get in the way of that.”

Azelphir returned to the front of the room, where he stood at the scrying table and peeled off the label of the first vial. He checked it again and then folded it up and put it into his pocket where the others could not see. “Hael and Kazo, please step forward.”

Taking a deep breath, the two came forward to meet Azelphir. At least they were in it together. Azelphir handed the vial off to Kazo and ushered them each over to take their seats.

“Kazo, this is your elixir. Hael, you are going to be our querent.”

Hael and Kazo now sat across from each other, silently, reading each others’ expressions in the very specific way a pair of psychic twins without a mother can. Hael was relatively stoic--the way she normally was--but her brother was already sweating. Azelphir now loomed over them like a grim spectre, but then shifted dispositions.

“How are you two doing?” he asked. His tone seemed almost maliciously casual. The silent conversation happening between the two siblings now loudly changed subjects. “I hear you have plans to go out and visit your family in Mabe Village soon?”

“Um, yes?”

“Good. I thought so.”

Alright. So it was definitely malicious. The students rested uneasily in Azelphir’s assurance that whatever horrifying thing he had planned for them would almost definitely come to fruition exactly as he had planned. Kazo wriggled around in his seat, Hael balled up her fist and let it go, holding another one under the table helping to ease her tension.

“Kazo, whenever you are ready, you may begin.”

Kazo nodded, scooted his chair in closer, and swallowed nervously. He uncorked the vial and drank it down, almost instantly recoiling from the bitter aftertaste, but managed to keep it down. The moment settled as he waited for the potion to take effect.

“It’s… bitter,” he said.

“Good. How are you feeling?”

“A bit fuzzy…”

“Good. Begin.”

Kazo took another deep breath, scooting the chair in for about the third time so he was now uncomfortably close to the table and the crystal. He closed his eyes, quieting himself the way they did before each reading, then began to focus on the orb. There was an extended silence--not unusual for divination sessions, but now, in the context, harrowing--until Kazo’s posture began to wilt. He squirmed, trying his hardest not to look away, and his breathing grew frantic and shallow. The other students leaned in, just as curious as they were afraid--knowing soon they would be in the same position where Kazo currently resided.

“Oh god…” he said, quietly.

“What do you see?”

Kazo was quiet. He couldn’t make the words.

“Kazo,” Azelphir said, sharply. “This is not about you. Tell your querent what you see.”

“No!” Kazo blurted out. This was not directed at Azelphir. He had nearly jumped up from his seat and was tugging on his sister’s hand for dear life. _“Hael we can’t go back home!! We just can’t!!”_

Hael looked back up to Azelphir, alarmed, but Azelphir’s gaze--now turned to ire--was dead set on Kazo.

“You _must,”_ he yelled. “You _will._ This is a _fact._ You are not reporting your feelings. You are reporting facts.”

There was a silence. Kazo’s whole body was shaking--he buried his head in his hands. But he knew he needed to gain composure with Azelphir hovering over him. Through the quaking nerves, he composed himself and gazed not back into the crystal, but rather directly to Hael. Azelphir stepped back, at least satisfied that Kazo took hold of himself.

“Tell your querent what you see.”

Kazo swallowed again, his throat salty and dry. He could no longer maintain eye contact with his sister, so he gazed back into the orb.

“Mabe Village… is in ruins. There’s…”

He stopped.

“What is it, Kazo?” Azelphir asked. He already knew the answer to this question, but he was just trying to coax it out of the boy calmly. “How did it happen? Why did it happen?”

“There’s… a hinox.”

“And what did it do?”

A pause.

“It... destroyed everything…”

“And how does this pertain to your querent?” he asked. “What did she do? What do you see?”

Kazo hesitated again. He was broken. Out of the state. He was speaking to her now not as a seer, but as a very concerned sibling. This might not have been real to the others, but to him, in this moment, everything he was seeing was very, very real.

“Hael, we can’t go.”

“Kazo,” Azelphir snapped again. “You can go and you _will_ go. This is what Fate has decreed. Now tell her what will happen when you go.”

“Our family,” he said, quietly. He was speaking as a brother again. “We were going out into the woods to gather mushrooms for dinner… the way we always used to. But there’s a hinox that lives in the woods. And he--” he stopped, looking away from the orb.

“Kazo,” Azelphir said. “Spare no details. Look at it.”

He took a deep breath and returned his gaze to the crystal. He didn’t like what he saw, but with Azelphir breathing over him, he knew he had to push through.

“We disturb his lair on accident. And he wakes up. And he takes a big log and he just instantly--” Kazo choked. He hung his head low.

“What does he do?”

He paused. “He takes the log and he swings it at us, and it catches our baby brother. And it--” he stopped. “It smashes him--against a rock--” Now, he was crushed beneath a storm of tears. “Hael I couldn’t help him!! I tried to help him! I couldn’t--I let him--”

“Kazo! Compose yourself.”

Azelphir’s words fell on deaf ears. Kazo could not hear him through his frantic breathing. “Hael there’s blood everywhere. I saw him smashed--all his guts oh god and his bones and his skull and it’s sticking to the trees--” His voice cracked again. He sobbed. “He’s so small and oh my god just instantly--unrecognizable--”

Hael’s face was now twisted into a similar, mystified-yet-horrified expression that the rest of the students wore, but with significantly more alarm. She looked up again to Azelphir, begging for a reminder that this was all just pretend, but she was the least of Azelphir’s concerns at the moment.

_“Kazo!”_ he yelled. “And then what happened? What did you do?”

“We started to run back into town to get help, but it chased us. It destroyed part of the village, a fire broke out and everyone tried to fight it but…” he sighed. His voice got very quiet. He struggled to find a way to phrase it while sparing the most gruesome details. “Lots of people died. Houses flattened. People… squashed. You…”

A pause.

“What happened to your querent, Kazo?”

Kazo was crushed. Defeated. Azelphir had twisted his arm far enough, and now he had no choice but to say it. His body stopped shaking as he entered a sudden state of calm, in a hopeless sort of admission to her fate.

“You were crushed and eaten by the hinox. In its hands.”

Everyone was silent. Azelphir settled back, now pleased that he had finally accepted it.

“Just…” Kazo started. He stopped. The words wouldn’t come. He instead raised his hands and made a twisting motion with his fist, then brought them together as if breaking a pencil in two. That was all he needed to say.

“I was the only one who survived.”

The dead silence again grew deader, and it was the first of many silences that would be buried in this room today.

“Good,” Azelphir said, finally, as Kazo slowly began to dig his way up out of the grave. “We’ll work on your ability to report. It’s best to speak in present or future tense--describing what you see, and what will come to pass--but you’ve done alright, given the circumstances. Even if it did take you awhile to get there.”

Hael was still searching for her confirmation from Azelphir that it was really all just pretend. Now, at least, he acknowledged her.

“Don’t worry, as I’ve said, none of that was real,” he said, nodding to her alarm. Although the elixir was slowly beginning to wear off, Kazo was not in a state to believe it.

“But it felt so… it _feels_ so--”

“Real, yes. That is its function,” Azelphir said. Kazo still wasn’t convinced by this and addressed his own sister again, in spite of his instructor’s words.

“We can’t go back to Mabe Village.”

“Why not?” Azelphir asked him. “None of that is going to actually happen. I devised it all this morning for our training. You two can still enjoy a visit with your family in relative safety.”

That wasn’t a satisfying enough answer for them.

“I can’t… I don’t want…”

“But you would, if it were real,” Azelphir said again. “For you see, nothing you can do can circumvent Fate. Your future is accounted for from the very moment you view it--as it is for all of our querents. Despite your best efforts, despite even seeing this vision you would--and, as a Seer, it would be your _duty to--_ carry on with the knowledge you have been provided.”

“You mean we’d have to just waltz back into Mabe Village like nothing happened? And be responsible for the deaths of that many people? For our own family?” Kazo asked. Something like anger in his voice was rising. “That seems so--”

_“You_ are not responsible for those deaths. Fate is. The hinox is. _You_ only witnessed an unavoidable tragedy before it occurred,” Azelphir said, shortly, in a vicious tone that shut down Kazo’s whole argument before it occurred. _“That_ is the level of the responsibility you bear as a Seer, and that is the price of asking to know Fate.”

Silence. Each of the students felt the full weight of those words.

“So not only would you have to carry on with this knowledge, per your duty, per your _vows--_ but you _would_ carry on,” Azelphir said. “Because that vision you had would be the exact future as it had been revealed. It would not only be foolish and futile to attempt to alter such a decree, but doing so would be directly against your oath.”

There was a pause. Azelphir had said the words perhaps a bit too harshly, even for him, and quieted himself again. “As a Seer of the Order, you vow to witness. And the honor to bear witness to Fate--to view her workings the way she does--is a great responsibility that occasionally charges a heavy toll,” he said. “You must learn to accept and yield to her decree, despite the burden it may cause you.”

The students considered this. Kazo was still dizzy and disoriented, clambering through the clouds to sift one reality from the next. All he knew is that he felt horribly, abysmally sick, and wanted nothing to do with the outdoors anytime soon.

“I can never eat mushroom soup again…” he said.

“Will we really have to tell people how they die?” Hael asked, quietly.

“If that is what you see,” Azelphir said. “Then that is what Fate demands of you.”

She considered this.

“In detail?” Kazo asked.

“For the purpose of our exercises, yes,” Azelphir replied. “Because there will be moments when you cannot spare such details. But, in practice, you may determine the degree of how, let’s say--flowery--your descriptions may get. Rely on actions in such cases. Not descriptors. If your querent asks more, then provide.”

They both nodded. Kazo hung his head in thought--also in an attempt to keep himself from vomiting--and Azelphir started to usher them away. Hael escorted Kazo to the back of the room and helped to make sure he was still conscious. Azelphir reached for the next vial and peeled off the label.

“Myrin, next.”

Myrin nodded. He rose and approached the table, daunted, but with a bit more mettle as he had time to prepare. Azelphir brought Astor forward, who took his seat across from Myrin. Astor did his best to remain composed--he was not one much in the way of expressing his feelings--but it was not so much his own nerves but the icy-white composure of his diviner that daunted him. Myrin was a couple years older than him, but even quieter, and carried an air of determination sleeker than that of an assassin. Perhaps it was the kodachi training. He had been on the path to become a Sheikah warrior before deciding to join the Order, and he often carried himself as such.

Myrin drank the elixir and began the reading, not nearly as distressed as Kazo--for he bore no blood relation to Astor--but still obviously disturbed as the potion began its inner workings. He winced and struggled--but did not cry--as he detailed the grisly ways Astor and the other students would die. Astor sat and listened patiently--constantly reminding himself it was not real--as Myrin explained how, on their next monster outing, he would once again be met with monsters in the night, but now lacking the ability he had before. He would watch as each of his classmates died, and he would be unable to stop it. The moblins would crack his skull and eat his brains as they likewise feasted on each of the students--some of them while still alive. Myrin’s own death was included in this, and this was the point that caused the greatest distress in him--to have to see and report on his own death. But he struggled through it, Azelphir goading him along, and Hael then read for Myrin to much a similar effect.

And then it came time for Astor to read.

He took his seat across from Kazo--who was still barely composed as it was, but who figured this couldn’t be any worse than what he had already been through. Astor uncorked the vial and pressed the glass to his lips. He winced immediately as the bitter flavor hit his tongue. The potion was cold--not very much like tea--and while it did have some warm notes of sage and lavender, these were a thinly-veiled attempt to make an otherwise-inedible brew slightly more tolerable, and the aftertaste was light and pleasant in the front of his mouth, but rancid in the back of his throat. Like an awful, pungent medicine about to have quite a similar awful, pungent effect.

After a moment or two, Astor settled--the taste, lingering--and he began to feel outside himself. It was as though his whole spirit was tied to a string that another being was tugging on. This energy, of course, was concentrated most heavily through his eyes and forehead. It became difficult for him to keep other thoughts. The feeling wasn’t necessarily unfamiliar--they had all entered trances--but it was strong and concentrated. Pulling his gaze to the crystal urgently, as though if he did not read in time, the vision would become stuck, and lodged in his psyche forever. He adjusted himself, turned his eyes to the crystal, and began to read.

Puffy gray clouds swirled in the crystal where there had been none before--the glinting reflection of candle lights moved together into the still to become grand sconces on the walls while the clouds changed colors, arranging themselves into tables and chairs. The vision was at first muted and monotone, but slowly came into more color. In the next moment, however, the clouds extended further, and Astor was now standing in a large banquet hall--lined with red carpet and tables upon tables of guests. There, he caught sight of the back of a man’s head--whom he somehow knew was Kazo--but then caught sight of the sickles other party guests held behind their backs. He hesitated.

“Astor,” Azelphir said. “You must say exactly what you see.”

“I--you--” Astor stuttered. “There’s a banquet. It looks like we’re in the abbey, possibly? Or maybe Hyrule Castle… and lots of people are there. And--” he stopped again. One of the guests drew the sickle and sliced the head of another attendant clean off. Blood sprayed everywhere. It thudded to the floor.

“Astor.”

“And there’s an attack.”

The body went limp and fell off the chair. The sound of teasing laughter filled the room. In a puff of smoke, the guests transformed.

“What kind?”

“Masked assassins. In red and black. It looks like they’re wearing the Sheikah Eye…”

“What about it is unique?”

“It’s upside-down.”

A pause. Myrin and the others knew quite well what this meant, but Astor--living so far away from a main city--did not. And he was in no sort of state to piece that information together on his own. Time slowed down, he looked down and felt a sickle in his hand.

“And what else?”

His gaze was fixed on Kazo. He was older here, and had only just started to react. Others were getting up out of their chairs, ducking under tables, screaming… Astor lifted the sickle in his hands.

“Kazo, you’re there and you…” he said. 

_Sling! Thwump._

“You die.”

Beat. It felt good.

Astor winced, momentarily bringing himself back into the room. Kazo looked out and away, giving his disturbed audience a look to ask, _‘Well, what else is new?’_

“How, Astor?” Azelphir pressed. “How does your querent die?”

“I kill him.”

Nervous silence. Azelphir raised his eyebrows, intrigued, though the others hardly noticed. This wasn’t exactly what he had planned for the boy’s vision. “Go on.”

But Astor was out of it. He started to squirm and pinched his eyes together, looking away from the crystal as the vision continued to claw away at his psyche. He shook his head back and forth in attempt to loosen its grasp on him, but it was real. It was so, so real. He raised the blade and killed him. The cracking of his neck, the warmth of the blood--the clatter of the silverware as his body thudded to the floor. He killed him. He killed him. He killed him.

“I’m not going to kill you--I can’t--I’m not a murderer--”

“Astor,” Azelphir hissed. “It will be so. It _must_ be so.”

There was a silence as Astor trembled there, hanging his head in his hands and letting out a small whimper--the most his body would let him make without going over the edge. After a moment, his body steadied as he found a brief second of calm, which he used to reorient himself and lift his gaze back to the crystal ball.

“How does the querent die?” 

Holding on to this stillness as best as he could--despite how he had to suppress his own breath and heart--he stepped back into the vision. Now, he navigated the space in slow motion as he attempted to look here and there as the scene rewound and played itself back for a second time.  
“We break in through the windows--the assassins--and a few come down from the rafters. We’re carrying sickles… Kazo, you and I--we’re both older. And I come up behind you--you’re sitting next to your wife--and I--” _Thunk._ He looked away.

“Astor,” Azelphir said again. “Focus. Watch it. Spare no details.”

Astor stared back into the vision. He watched in slow motion as the head rolled off the blade of his sickle, down onto the table. Coming to a stop face-up. Searing screams. He felt like he won.

“What happens to the querent?”

Astor paused. It was too late for him to look away from his former classmate’s lifeless eyes and the trail of blood the head left on the white cloth.

“I slice your head off. And it rolls onto the table--your body goes limp. And there’s blood everywhere. People are screaming--and it’s hard for me to see now. I jump up, I go to the next person, but your head is there… on the table…” He stopped again, wincing. “Your eyes were punctured. They’re still open. Well, the one that isn’t… blown out...”

The head had rolled right onto a fork on its way out.

Kazo lurched out over the side of the chair. He at least made it to a trash can.

“Well done,” Azelphir said, glancing over and then looking away as Kazo finally began to hurl. “You didn’t spare on details, that’s positive. Even if it did take you a little while to get there.”

While the clouds were now clearing, and Astor was slowly landing back down into the room, something about the vision lingered. Something other than the intrusive images playing back of the head rolling to the floor, or the body falling from the chair. Something that made him feel larger, more in control. But, in his murkiness, he could not sort one feeling from the next, and he was feeling just as powerful as he was dazed, frantic, afraid, and in deep, chilling denial.

“I won’t--I can’t do that--”

“You will,” Azelphir said. “Or, you would, if this was a true scenario. Although, I hadn’t programmed you to be the assassin. So if that is indeed what you saw, then I commend you in your honesty.”

Astor paused. So that wasn’t him…?

“You mean… you didn’t--?”

“It was a generic Yiga assassin, yes,” Azelphir said. “I am surprised you took his perspective, but not quite. It’s a sign of imbalance, and lack of control. To be expected of a novice.”

Well, at least they were all still alive. And perhaps it was better for Azelphir to be as objective and methodical about it as he was. It was probably better than the alternative. As he watched the students collect themselves--Kazo sitting up and wiping his face off--he gathered up the things from the desk and started to tuck them all neatly away.

“Well, congratulations, you all. You did it,” he said. “Decompress as you need. It would appear as if one of you’s already found one solution.” He gave perhaps just the slightest bit of a snide eye to Kazo, who was leaning now on Hael, helping him stand.

“Next week, you’ll start the basics of tasseography with Geral and we’ll return to this again in a couple of weeks. Once we have you all in the swing of reporting what you see in Forced Consciousness, you should look forward to taking the sister potion, which is designed for our practice querents,” he said. This, he gave with the pleasant-yet-venemous smile they had been expecting him to carry the whole way through. “It makes you believe fully everything your diviner says.”

Now the students looked to each other. As if one person fully wrapped up in the delusion wasn’t enough.

“It’s a temporary effect, of course. To get you accustomed to dealing with the next step in this process: frantic querents,” Azelphir said. “Regardless. Enjoy your day off.”

Azelphir gathered his things and started to go, while all the students were still just collecting themselves from the onslaught. But then Thelem poked his head in the room.

“Hello?” he asked. “Am I right on time? Are you all complete?”

“It would appear so,” Azelphir said, coldly, looking irritated that Thelem was now standing in his way. “Class has just ended.”

“Excellent,” Thelem said, stepping further into the room. “Just wanted to commend you all on making it through. Hope Azelphir didn’t make things too gruesome for you all.”

He most certainly had. The look on his students’ faces said it all. They were morbid and pale--to say they looked as if they had seen a ghost would be nowhere near enough. They looked like they had seen several ghosts, several times over, and more than likely buried them themselves. One of them had almost definitely vomited. He nodded.

“I’ll take it you all need your time then. Just wanted to remind you all to take care of yourselves,” Thelem said. “The first few sessions are especially intense, and those thoughts can linger. You can speak with me anytime if you need anything, or any of the elders for that matter. As this is a training ritual we in the Order have gone through for generations, we are all very equipped to counsel you through it from here,” he said. The students weren’t even sure exactly what kind of counseling they would need. “None of it was real, we promise. You and your loved ones are safe.”

None of them believed him right now, of course.

“It may be ugly work, but somebody has to do it. Thank Azelphir for his attention to detail,” Thelem said. “I hear his elixirs over the past couple years have gotten incredibly… personalized.” Thelem glanced over to Azelphir for confirmation his suspicions were true. Azelphir did not move much, but he straightened up, and they all felt the way he almost smiled in accomplishment. At least someone was noticing the effort. “It’s difficult, but it’s a reality we all must sometimes face,” Thelem said. “I hope that now, you all at least understand why the work we do requires daily ritual and alignment.”

The students got up and left, and Astor hurried out so he could catch up to Thelem and talk to him about his vision. Thelem noticed how Astor sped up down the hall, and waited for him to meet up.

“How are you and Azelphir getting along?” Thelem asked as he approached. “You seem to be doing well as Assistant Sacristan.”

“Oh,” Astor said. “Thank you...”

“You’re even starting to look like him,” Thelem said with a gentle nudge. Astor glanced down to his feet. He hadn’t thought about it before, but he supposed he _had_ taken a few styling ideas from Azelphir’s own braiding arrangement. This, in combination with his dark hair and wintery complexion--and the fact that he almost always had to follow him around these days to perform his duties--he probably was looking more than a bit like Azelphir.

“Oh.”

Thelem laughed. “It’s not a bad thing. He’s halfway decent-looking. Pretty, if gaunt.”

Astor wasn’t exactly sure what to say, so he figured it was just best to change the subject. “Thelem, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Alright,” he said. “I figured. What’s up, kiddo?”

“Well, we had Forced Consciousness Training today…”

“And you got through it,” he said, giving Astor a reassuring smile.

“But I want to talk to you about my vision.”

“I understand,” Thelem said. “What’s the damage?”

“In it I…” Astor hesitated. The cloudiness was at last beginning to wear off, but now there was so much still to process. “I killed Kazo. I was a masked assassin, I had a sickle. And I just came behind him and sliced his head off. It rolled all over the table and just… I felt it. I witnessed it all happen.”

Thelem nodded heavily for a moment, scratching his beard in thought. Having the kids kill each other was new. Mostly it was by monster attacks or natural disasters. “Well, I have to admit, that’s a bit intense. Even for Forced Consciousness. I might need to have a discussion with him about that.”

“He said it wasn’t supposed to be that way,” Astor explained. “For some reason, I changed perspectives.”

“Ahh. So you were acting in the vision, rather than observing it?”

“Yes…”

“It’s not unheard of,” Thelem said, warmly, attempting to abate the worry he could see growing on the boy’s face. “Accidents do happen. Did you feel that you were yourself?”

“Not really, no,” Astor said. But he hesitated. He wasn’t necessarily not himself. There was a feeling of power. Enjoyment in it. But that couldn’t have been him. “But, a little bit? I can’t really describe it.”

“Then it was likely a fluke thing,” Thelem said. “We’ll work on grounding you. Some people are a bit more susceptible to flying about in different realms than others. We’ll get you in charge of your perspective in no time. That’s what we train you for.”

“So I won’t… it wasn’t me?”

“The vision wasn’t real, Astor,” Thelem said, turning to him. He could see the wavering emotion in the boys’ eyes--moving back and forth between trust and fear. “Just intense. And believable. As it was designed to be.”

“So I’m not… I won’t kill anyone?”

“I can’t guarantee you that, Astor, there’s a time and place for everything,” Thelem said. “But the odds are in your favor that won’t turn into a masked Yiga assassin overnight, gain proficiency in sickles, and murder your classmate in cold blood.”

He smiled. Astor forced one as well. It always made him feel, if not perfect, at least a little bit better. When Thelem put it like that, the fear did seem, if anything else, humorous.

“If you’re going to kill anyone, I’m sure you’d at least have good reason,” Thelem said, giving Astor an encouraging shove. They both laughed. That was a win in Thelem’s book. The two of them quieted, and now, with the initial fear abated, Astor felt a little more open to talk about it.

“I didn’t mind it…” he admitted. “It almost reminded me of my dreams.”

Thelem turned his head to the side. “Oh?” he asked. “In what way?”

“It felt powerful.”

Thelem nodded. That checked out. “I imagine it would.”

“It was gross but…” he paused. There wasn’t a good way to say it. To say he enjoyed murdering his classmate would be incorrect. But, in the same vein, there was something energizing still left flowing in his veins. He was outside of himself. “I guess I wasn’t myself. The feeling was very powerful, and it lingered,” he said. “I still feel it. And it feels kind of good. The blood. The control.”

“Adrenaline?”

“I guess.”

“That’s not uncommon as well,” Thelem said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a quartz crystal. “Use this and some frankincense to cleanse and relax for the rest of the day. Sometimes feelings linger. Miasma, you know.”

Astor nodded.

“Might want to stop into town and grab some smokey quartz or a point of obsidian. Will help you ground. We might have some spares lying around, but best to have your own,” Thelem said. “Have you learned to use crystals yet?”

“We know the basics...”

“I’ll jot that down then, we’ll get you all on board,” Thelem said. “They really come in handy every now and then. I always carry a few on me, and you eventually find the ones that work best for you.” Thelem then reached again into his pocket and pulled out another stone--this one a smooth and polished green with a few small red specks in it. Only about as big as the first joint of his thumb. “Here. I want you to have this one too.”

Astor examined it.

“Bloodstone,” Thelem said. “A personal favorite of mine.”

Astor turned it over in his hand. Now that Thelem mentioned it, he could feel the way the energy of the dark stone rolled off the energy in his own hand--dripping off of it almost like a thick, viscous liquid that did indeed feel very much like blood.

“As I’m sure you know, the Goddess Hylia reincarnated into the blood of the royal family--in the line of daughters, in the Queen, Zelda,” Thelem said. “Many, many years ago--millennia--it’s said that there was an assassination attempt on the Princess Zelda. Her appointed knight fought valiantly, but her blood was spilled. Versions of the folklore vary on whether or not she lived or died, but, having the blood of the Goddess, when she bled out, it fell to the earth and hardened into the stone we see today.”

Astor looked back down at it, confused. “So it’s a sign of devotion to Hylia?”

“Well, I think of it not so much about Hylia as it is a parable emphasizing the importance of bloodshed,” Thelem said. “I’d certainly never want to kill anyone. But if Fate told me I had to, I would. And I’d keep this in hand to recall it.”

Thelem pulled out another stone, similar in color to the one Astor currently had in hand. He held it up to his eyes to inspect it. It didn’t do much in the way of glinting in the light--it was dark and round--but it was easier to see the contrast in the red specks.

“It’s at least very beautiful,” Thelem said. “And it’s an interesting story. Without a little bloodshed, we wouldn’t have the beauty of the stone. Well, as the story goes.”

Astor nodded.

“I think its a bit of an old wives’ tale, though,” Thelem said. “Gemstones come from the earth, not the Goddess.”

There was a deep, thoughtful pause. Thelem inspected the stone again before slipping it back into his pocket, and gave Astor another pat on the shoulder. “But, be grateful. At least, in general, reality is often far less twisted than Azelphir’s own mind. And I don’t think you’ll be beheading anyone anytime soon.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw:  
> brief descriptions of blood and animal killing/gutting again  
> deaths of minor characters who are only mentioned for a little bit

Three years passed, and then, early that spring, tragedy struck the Kingdom of Hyrule. On the same day, only hours apart, both the King and the Queen were assassinated. By blessing of Fate, the Princess was nowhere near at the time, and she remained safe. But even that, too, was tragic, for she hadn’t been able to see her parents before they died. She now, alone--and at hardly the age of twenty--had to learn how to lead the kingdom on her own.

The Castle was very hush-hush about how it had happened for fear of another security breach, but everyone knew it was the work of the Yiga Clan. The assassins were swiftly--but privately, at the request of the Princess--apprehended and put to death. With the executions aside--which she had refused to attend--it was now Zelda-Rose’s sole responsibility to tend to all matters in the kingdom. She decided to take the year in mourning and not assume the title of Queen until at least the age of twenty-one. And, in that time, all of Hyrule mourned with her.

Present at the funeral was a noble from a neighboring kingdom who was sent to Hyrule out of concern for the Princess. Rhoam Bospharamus was several years her elder, still relatively young for a ruler, but much more experienced in the ways of kingship. And while Zelda-Rose was first insistent she would have been fine on her own, the rest of the Court--at the eventual admission of the Princess--decided it would be best for him to act as Regent in the meantime.

Rhoam gave the presumptive Queen her distance, considering their age gap, but still cared for her deeply. They had been arranged to be married long before the deaths of her mother and father, but Zelda-Rose asserted she was not ready for a marriage and wouldn’t be for a while, especially in light of current events. She wanted her wedding to be a happy occasion, as she’d always dreamed of, and refused to let the sad necessity born of political turmoil soil that for her. The Regent-King understood and vowed to respect her decision, taking on the kingdom as his own in the meantime.

In the wake of this, the students at the Order had lengthy philosophical discussions about their role in the disclosure of this kind of critical information. Couldn’t the Royal Seer have predicted and prevented such a tragedy? Even if he did, their teachers explained, the Royal Seer was bound by their same laws, and thus could not reveal any information unless prompted. If he had seen it on his own, he could not discuss it with anyone out of respect for Fate’s private workings. And, if the Royal Seer, Clement, had foreseen this in a session with a client--even the King and Queen themselves--he would be bound by oath to tell them. But even with this as a warning, act as they may, there would have been nothing any of them could have done to prevent it. The deaths of the King and Queen, like the deaths of all others, were written long before their birth, and respect for that finality was at the heart of being a Seer.

By this third year of study, however, in addition to all the weighty fatalistic philosophy, everyone in Astor’s cohort was beginning to specialize in a different form of divination. They all became proficient in crystal scrying because it was the method used in the Order nearly every day. But Astor also found himself apt to capnomancy, smoke scrying--and unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly--found that he had a knack for hieroscopy, Azelphir’s own speciality, as well as two subsets known as hematomancy--divination by blood--and osteomancy, by bones. 

He wasn’t surprised, but did not necessarily like that he was so good at reading guts, bones, and gore--even if he had grown more comfortable around Azelphir--because it started to remind him of his strange dreams and encounters with the monsters. Encounters and dreams that even now, three years later, he did not exactly understand. 

There had been a couple more instances in class when they had gone out looking for materials only for bokoblins or stalfos to freeze in their tracks, mystified in Astor’s presence. This, of course, left a healthy opening for their hired soldiers to act swiftly and make their kill, and they often joked they should bring Astor along for missions. No one really knew how to react to this, however, though it garnered a lot of side eyes from townsfolk and students alike. It still gave Thelem a kick.

Forced Consciousness Training had gone as well as it could have been for something so unpleasant, and the students had all at least bonded over Azelphir’s deranged sense of humor, even if Astor was beginning to look more like him by the day. He swore he’d never become so humorless and macabre as Azelphir, although he was still rather quiet, and never exactly minded dead things. He deliberately tried to stick to smoke and crystal scrying for this reason, but, as Azelphir’s rising protegee, Azelphir kept trying to gently nudge him down a bloodier path.

With all this accomplished, the cohort was now ready to begin reading for clients. Supervised, and with many asterisks, of course.

One of Astor’s later clients was a wealthy--if garish--couple from Castle Town who often donated money and materials to the Order in exchange for consultations. They were nobility, but bore no relationship to the Queen, and so were rather avid social-climbers who often stepped on the toes of others to get what they wanted. They were inflated by wealth, both mentally and physically, as the woman had hair that towered over her head almost in a Courser-Beehive style, and the man had a broad nose and wide cheeks that reminded Astor of a rodent trying to smuggle its food away. The curly mustache where there would otherwise be whiskers only added to this likeness.

The couple was making an important trip to the Gerudo Desert soon for some trading at the stable and in the surrounding valley, and then making other business regarding the jewelry market in Gerudo Town. Tensions among the wealthy and noble were high in the fallout of the Yiga Clan’s attack, and so most were being escorted around by teams of extra guards. They came wanting to ensure that they would have a safe passage and that their business in the desert wouldn’t be as barren as the sands around them.

Astor, now to the point where he was almost independent giving readings, sat down across from them on the other side of the crystal ball, and had the woman take her seat opposite to him. Her husband as well as one of their personal guards stood nearby while Azelphir supervised from the door. Novices always had another Seer--usually their mentor--in the room in case visions got foggy or clients became difficult. They often helped students through the whole reading to begin with and then slowly stepped back until the student was ready to do all readings on their own.

Astor, a bit nervous just for knowing their wealth and position, nonetheless settled, cleansed the table with smoke and incense, and began to do the reading. Normally, there would be a bit of a briefing on the duty of the Seer to the querent and the unchangeable nature of Fate, but Azelphir had already briefed them. That and, by now, they had to be well aware of the fact that they were seeking services from novices to score free readings--and that there were bound to be some hiccups here and there. But, with that aside, all that left Astor to do was to See.

“Alright,” he said, scooting his chair in. He knew he was going to have to get better at his introductions, but he couldn’t figure out how at the moment. “Tell me your question.”

The woman looked up to her husband, briefly, consulting him with her eyes. But before the two had a full conversation--in fact, even before he could get a full glance in--she made up her mind and turned back to Astor.

“Will we have a safe passage from here to Gerudo Town?”

Astor saw her husband cross his arms like he had been slighted by something, but nonetheless nodded and directed his gaze into the crystal ball. After a moment, lights from candles and lingering smoke swirled into shapes and he felt his eyes fall into soft focus while he was drawn further into the vision. The woman watched as the young teen’s eyes glazed over--although she could see no shapes in the ball--and wondered for a moment how he was supposed to see anything with all that hair dangling down his face. At least part of it was tied off into a thin braid to keep it from completely obscuring his vision, but right in front of his eye seemed quite the odd place to hang it. She supposed he had a cowlick to hide or something. Maybe he was going through a phase.

Astor, however, could see fine with his hair, and was not going through a phase. He started to focus on the vision of a carriage he could see making its way down the road. He saw the Castle in the distance, so the village nearby was almost certainly Mabe, which means they were heading south. He followed the path as a rough map began to appear in his mind.

“Alright. So um, I see the route you’re traveling…” he said. “You’re going the long way around through Mabe Village and stopping at Lakeside Stable. Then through the Hyrule Outpost and around the Great Plateau…”

The woman nodded. Astor followed the carriage further as it started to come into vision more clearly, now gaining color and almost physical weight, and he was able to differentiate bodies of the people travelling with them, if not their faces yet.

“I see about--nine--people. Including you.”

He counted them again. Yes. Nine seemed correct. The woman looked back to her husband and they exchanged a glance for a moment. Nine was a bit more than they usually traveled with.

“But it seems successful?”

“Everything so far...” he followed the carriage farther. Nothing of interest in Hyrule Outpost, looks like they’d stop at the inn. They made their way around the Great Plateau, started to cross the suspension bridge, over the Regencia River, and then… wait.

“The third day.”

Astor leaned in to get a closer view. A frenzy of movement. The people scattered. Puffs of smoke clouded the vision. He’d have to refocus and play it back again. From the present, the woman and her husband looked on to him, anxiously.

“Midday,” Astor said. The sun was high. “You’re--” There was so much movement it was hard to keep track of what was going on. At least they had made it past the hinox. He managed to peer in closer, now seeing the puffs of smoke and glint of steel. “There’s an attack.”

The woman bounced up in her seat, now looking frantic at her husband and back again to Astor. The man raised his eyebrows, the guard standing next to him looked tense. Azelphir narrowed in, keeping his distance, but at the ready to intervene. By now, the students had been well-trained in Forced Consciousness, and he was certain Astor would be able to handle whatever he saw. But as Astor focused in, tracking the movements again and again to make any sense of the scene, the woman hung on desperately for any of his words.

“In broad daylight?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well that’s just ridiculous. Who would do such a thing?”

Now, he was closer--standing right there beside them. And he saw the puffs of smoke, the flurry of red tags… Oh no. Not this again. 

The jeering laughter rang out in his mind.

“The Yiga Clan,” Astor said, gravely.

The woman looked to her husband, to their guard, and even to Azelphir, but Azelphir did not react. While she was starting to tap her fingers and shake her feet, nervously, Astor zeroed into the scene further so he would not be pulled out by her panic. The guard crossed his arms and widened his stance.

“The Yiga?” she asked. “We need someone to protect us then! Soldiers. We’ll hire lots and lots of soldiers--”

“Not sure where we’ll get that many soldiers on such short notice,” her husband said.

“I do see… _some_ soldiers with you,” Astor said, squinting. Nine. There were nine people--some in the familiar Hylian armor. The woman and her party assumed that would probably account for the extra people he had seen. Astor continued to fall silent as he attempted to watch it all in slow motion, beat by beat, stopping, reversing, peering around to glimpse their faces and objects around them. There was a pause.

“Well?”

“Do they take anything?”

“They make off with some of your jewels. Money,” he said.

Another silence. The woman and her husband waited for the boy to say something else, but he was much too focused to care about their belongings.

“We should plan on bringing dupes, then,” the man said. “Offer something to them.”

“I do see you… handing something off,” Astor said. He watched as one of the Yiga took the gem, inspected it, and promptly tossed it aside. Yikes. “Although, it doesn’t look like they’ll buy it…”

The woman and her husband were silent. Astor watched as the Yiga moved toward the carriage, starting to ransack their belongings. But as the guards drew their swords, the Yiga sprang up, taking the woman and her husband by the neck. _‘Stop,’_ they said, tightening their grip on their blades. _‘If anyone moves, they die.’_

Astor froze.

He’d witnessed plenty of deaths in Forced Consciousness. Mainly, his classmates. But something was so different now about seeing the sickles against two strangers’ necks. How the weapons fit so perfectly around their heads, pressing the fat of their skin in just firm enough to not break it--yet. The terror piercing in their eyes. He’d seen much of it before, and yet, for some reason, he was paralyzed. His voice was still. While he tried to keep his calm, work on his breathing, convince himself to talk, there was a long, drawn out silence. 

“Well? Are we victorious?”

Astor took a deep breath in and sighed out carefully. But, as he began to speak, playing it through again to catch more details, he watched as a familiar face disappeared in a puff of smoke and held his blade against the woman’s throat. The face of a man standing in the room with them currently.

Astor paused. He looked up at the bodyguard, who stood on the defensive next to the woman’s husband. Was he Yiga now, or was this man he saw in the vision simply an imposter? A duplicate? Would he lash out if he exposed him here and now? He didn’t have much time, and he couldn’t get a good read on him. The man emanated an angry, imposing aura. But, then again, that was typical of most bodyguards. He didn’t have time to debate.

“There’s some blood, but no one dies... there…”

“Blood?? Is anyone injured?”

“Not… mortally.”

There were a few wounds on the soldiers from the scuffle leading up to this, but no one was missing an arm or two.

“So we manage to fight them off?”

Satisfied with their haul, the Yiga Clan took off again, leaving more smoke and tags and menacing laughter behind them. But, as they left, Astor couldn’t tell if they had slit the man’s throat, made off with him, or both. And he didn’t want to know anymore, and he couldn’t say it. On the plus side, Astor had a feeling the man was still alive, but would almost definitely fetch a hefty ransom. He focused his attention on the woman who remained.

“You get away,” he said. When he looked her in the eyes and said it just to her, it wasn’t exactly like he was lying. He hoped that would be enough.

“Well, that’s reassuring. At least we can be prepared.”

“And business?” the man asked.

Beat. Astor didn’t want to talk about that anymore. “As usual.”

“As usual?”

“I don’t see any business” Astor said. “Nothing stands out to me.”

“Do we make a deal there?”

“That’s a separate inquiry,” Azelphir said from the back. He stepped further into the room to impose his presence between Astor and the two. “You asked about the safety of your passage, and that is what our student provided.”

They looked to him, but knew better than to argue. Astor let out the tiniest, most imperceptible sigh of relief that Azelphir had stepped in--mainly so that it would help disguise the grim silence he was falling into.

“If you would like to ask another question on a different topic, you can pay the extra fee,” Azelphir said. “But we are very careful to manage the workload we give to our students.”

The man and the woman rolled their eyes to each other. Despite being wealthy, they were not the type for paying fees. In fact, because they were wealthy, they were exactly the type not to pay them. The man and the woman rose, thanked Astor and Azelphir for their time, and put down a few extra rupees for a measly tip. But they threw them down to Astor in much the same way one would throw stale bread to feed a duck. Regardless, Astor pocketed the change after Azelphir gave him more feedback, and then he went on his way trying to forget what had happened there for the rest of the day.

Class proceeded as normal. Astor was in disbelief how Azelphir had not noticed that he botched the reading, and wondered how long he would get away with it. But, as the days progressed, there was no news, and studies in the Order were moving on steadily. They were on the hieroscopy unit, which is how Astor had discovered that he had a talent for it--though, this might have also been due to his quasi-apprenticeship with Azelphir. Between following him around every day, and even assisting and preparing materials for readings, it was natural that Astor had a head start on this unit before it began.

Hieroscopy was primarily used to predict the output of livestock and crops, and thus was regularly used in this area, given the amount of farmland. Not many Seers were up to the job, though, and so Azelphir was often the go-to hieromancer of Central Hyrule. The most common procedure was that one animal from a farmer’s stock would be sacrificed and gutted, then have their bones and organs read to determine the prosperity of the rest. Azelphir often preferred this to be the first lamb of the season, but sometimes this was not possible, or the nature of the reading demanded something else instead.

Azelphir led them through the process, even if they did not like the prospect of slaying a young lamb, and explained that even the blood spilt during the sacrifice could be read for a purpose--from the spatter on the table to what lingered on the knife. He showed them the quick, painless ways to kill, and reminded them of the placement of vital organs and the careful technique for cutting skin and so as to not puncture them. 

By now, after three years, they weren’t as queasy around these things, so they each handled a portion as Azelphir explained the different correspondences. Each organ, bone, and imperfection on each had a meaning--and many, they had to memorize. This really was only because hieroscopy was Azelphir’s favorite unit, but much of divination, when it got right down to it, was simply memorization as it was. After memorization, it was learning to chart and interpret how all the meanings interacted with each other. Once they had that pattern down, really, as Thelem had been saying, nearly anything could be read.

Everyone took a deep sigh of relief when the hieroscopy exam was over--perhaps a bit alarmed at their newfound ability to gut and kill--and they moved on to a lecture unit that was much more bloodless. Astor was walking down the corridor with Azelphir one day--coming out from the classroom and to the chapel where they were going to arrange all the candles for the next service--when they heard rising voices coming from down the hall. As they entered the foyer, they saw Thelem standing there with his hands extending outward, trying to quell a red-faced woman in a large hoop skirt and a frenzied hairdo as if she was a wild animal.

“Well ma’am, I understand. I am trying to help you. But first I’d need to know what date you came in and who your reader was being supervised by--”

Astor stopped. He recognized her. And she, in her fury, turned when she saw them enter. Eyes wide, unhinged, and blood-hungry. Then she recognized him.

 _“Him,_ ” she said, pointing so as to hiss her accusation. “It was him.”

Astor stepped back, wondering for a split second if he could hide behind Azelphir, but it was too late. She was already marching toward him, wagging her finger at them both.

“You, young man,” she said. “Vermin! You little _pest--_ ”

“Ma’am,” Thelem said, following her. He stepped up between her and the young man so he didn’t need to cower behind Azelphir the way he clearly wanted to. “He is still in training. Please tell us what the issue is.”

“He _knew_ ,” she said. “He _knew_ what sort of fate would befall my poor husband and he said _nothing--_ ”

Oh no.

Azelphir and Thelem exchanged a glance. They’d seen ‘Karens’ before. Azelphir had his hand on the back of Astor’s cloak. He tightened his grip on the boy’s shoulder.

“He’s missing! He could be dead! And all of it could have been _prevented,_ we could have been _better_ _prepared_ only if--”

“Well, ma’am, we couldn’t have _prevented_ anything,” Thelem said, sternly. She turned and gave him this wild, incredulous expression, but he doubled down on his stance. “That is not how the future operates. You asked to know Fate, and we told you. We are very clear about these terms up front.” 

“But he didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me _everything_ ,” she said. “He _lied_ . And because he lied, now my poor husband is missing. Maybe even dead. _Kidnapped!_ By the Yiga scum. And we are going to be out hundreds of _thousands_ of rupees trying to get him back--”

She worked herself out of breath and into a pause. The three of them stared at her, each with a different expression, all hoping she would at least calm down. She directed her ire back to the smaller and most defenseless one.

“What do you have to say for yourself, boy?”

“I’m--”

“Ma’am, we are his supervisors, it is our job to manage him and so this will be handled through us,” Thelem said, waving her attention back to himself. “What has happened here is very serious and he will be disciplined accordingly.”

“Good! He should be _thrown out immediately_ if it were up to me! He’s cooperating with the Yiga!”

Thelem tried his very hardest not to roll his eyes to the other two, but Azelphir stood stern and stiff. He now had a subtle deathlock on the back of Astor’s arm.

“Well, I promise you, it will be handled later. But let’s get on to the more pressing issue here. If you’d follow me, ma’am, you can explain everything to me and we’ll help see what we can do to get your husband back to you,” Thelem said, starting to turn her to usher her away.

“If he’s even still _alive--!!_ ”

“Well, we’ll check on that first.”

Thelem did his best to keep her attention while he led her further away down the other hall, probably toward his office where he’d work on locating her husband and giving her some compensation. With that threat now de-escalated, Azelphir pulled Astor away around the corner. Astor held his breath. This was the most terrified he’d been of Azelphir since his first year, and now he had a reason to be.

 _“What did you do?_ ” Azelphir hissed.

“I don’t know…”

 _"Of course you do_ ,” he said, sharply. “You read for them last week. This had better be a misunderstanding.” 

“I…” Astor stopped. He knew it was of no use. “It isn’t.”

Azelphir’s eyes widened. He almost looked as he did on the day Astor made his first mistake at the Binding Ceremony. But Astor hung his head low. There was no defiance in him now, only resignation.

“I withheld information.”

Astor tightened his arms and braced for impact. He knew this was a death sentence. Not only had he hidden something from Azelphir, he’d hidden something from a client, and that was the exact thing Azelphir devoted all his time and sadism to in Forced Consciousness Training making sure they _expressly didn’t do_.

This was bad. Very bad. But Azelphir’s voice was still low.

“You did what?”

“I saw it,” Astor said again. “I withheld information from her.” There was a silence. “Not _maliciously_ , but… I did.”

Azelphir did not say anything. He studied Astor’s face, noting his remorse, and Astor was not sure if the silence meant things were going better or worse. Astor felt the need to buy himself for time, to maybe justify himself, but he was not sure to what end. “I saw the Yiga take him. I knew he’d be held for ransom. I just… I don’t know. I was scared. I couldn’t say it. One of the Yiga looked like the man in the room. I thought he’d hurt someone.”

Another silence. Astor rested in his defeat, at least knowing it was now off his chest. But when Azelphir began to speak, still only keeping his voice low, Astor had a sinking, ominous feeling that this meant it was, in fact, much worse than the alternative.

“This is an incredibly serious offense, Astor, I’m sure you’re aware,” Azelphir said.

“I’m aware,” Astor replied, hopelessly.

“And under my watch, too. This is egregious,” Azelphir said. At this point, he was still keeping his voice low and tempered, but he was almost speaking to himself like a parent to a misbehaving child, calculating how to pick up the ruined pieces from here.

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it…”

“And yet you did it anyway,” Azelphir said. Now there was a breach in his kindness, and he snapped back into his familiar ire. Somehow, this was more comforting, because it was to be expected. “You deliberately knew and you deliberately chose to withhold information. You just said so yourself.” He paused and backed off. The middle of the hall was not the place for this. Anyone could be coming by. He lowered his voice again. “This is not how we trained you. This directly violates our philosophy as an Order, and the duty you hold both to Fate and to your client,” he said. “To _Fate_ , most of all.”

“I’m aware…”

“There are hard truths in the world, Astor,” Azelphir said. “Truths that have real-life consequences. Those who ask to know Fate also ask to accept them. And it is your duty to deliver those truths to those who ask. You _vow_ to deliver them fully. If this is something you cannot handle--even after all your training--then you are not fit to be a Seer.”

Astor was silent. It was true.

“To say I’m disappointed in you would be an understatement. You know better than this,” Azelphir said. “We hold ourselves to much higher standards than this.”

There was another pause. Astor could see how Azelphir struggled to piece together what came next. There was something of a hesitation in his eyes, but it was only a shadow. A suggestion. “Thelem and I will discuss the best route for you, but I would not get your hopes up for a pleasant outcome.”

“I understand.”

“We’ll likely have to reimburse this woman--Thelem’s too kind for his own good--and he’s already off reading for her, I’m sure. For free. Even though she knew what she was signing up for when she booked a session with a novice...” Azelphir said. He stopped himself before he started derailing the conversation away from Astor to focus on them and their stupidity instead. “The reputation of the entire Order is at stake here. It is every time we give a reading. We could take a heavy toll from this, considering they are two of our patrons. But reputation, of course, takes a back seat to _responsibility_ , which is where you have failed most.”

There was a pause. The words cut, but he understood. They were true. He had a responsibility as a seer, and he had failed to live up to it.

“I think it best if you are to take the rest of the day in silence to reflect on what you’ve done,” Azelphir said. “I can handle the sacristy on my own.”

“Yes, sir,” Astor said. 

Azelphir began to gather himself, adjusting his robes and straightening his cuffs as he hoped to put these events behind him. But now, he was kind of just taking it out on his clothes. “You may wish to take awhile to reflect on your time here. These moments may be some of your last.”

Astor’s heart sank, but he knew it had been coming. “Yes, sir.”

“If it were up to me, I probably would expel you right now. This is an unacceptable enough offense as it is in Forced Consciousness, let alone with an actual client,” Azelphir said. He paused and lightened his tone again, if only slightly. This was Thelem’s decision, ultimately, and for that, Astor was lucky. Thelem was often much more forgiving than him. “But, my power only extends so far. So we will see what the Prior has to say. For his word, in accordance with Fate’s, has the final say on the matter.”

“Yes sir. I understand.”

“We will consult on what to do from there,” Azelphir said. He straightened his collar once more with an irritated flourish and began to depart. But then he stopped and turned to look at the boy one last time. “I’m disappointed in you, Astor. I wish you hadn’t given me a reason to be so. You showed a lot of promise here. But sometimes we don’t get what we want, and we must handle things as they lay.”

“Yes sir.”

“I will see you this afternoon. Good day.”

Astor stood there and watched as Azelphir turned again and made his way down the hall. He looked like a spectre of death the way his robes flowed out behind him--especially now with his agitated pace--even in spite of all the daylight that poured in from the archways. But just because the shadow of death had spared him for the moment didn’t mean it would be so forever, and Astor stood in the hall having to grapple with the fact that now he risked losing everything he had ever loved here. He stood in the hall and faced the very real possibility of being expelled from the Order--rejected, thrown out into the cold--all because he had not had the courage to admit the truth when he had seen it.


	9. Chapter 9

“Well, it’s not pretty,” Thelem said as he got up from his desk and moved to the window. He sighed, looking out to the yellowing persimmon trees he could see growing just outside. They were just starting to become ripe, as they were nearing the end of late summer and heading into fall.

Astor slunk lower down into his chair. He stared down at the spiraling threads of red and blue he could see woven into the rug under his feet. Golden embroidery, as was common here. “I know,” he said.

“The good news is you’re being held back a year,” Thelem said, hopefully.

Astor almost let out a sigh of relief, but then realized that that was the good news. Oh dear. He looked back up at Thelem, waiting to react until he said more, but Thelem looked back at Astor like he was waiting to say more after Astor would react.

“So what’s the bad news?” Astor asked, finally.

“That’s just it: you’re being held back a year,” Thelem continued, stepping back into motion. “You’re staying in the Order. But, that also means you’re going to have to go through more training. Particularly of the Forced Consciousness variety.”

Astor sighed. At least he was used to it by now. Or, as used to Forced Consciousness as someone could be.

“I’ve told Azelphir not to take it out on you, but, as your mistake happened in the exact area we’re supposed to train you most for, I think we can see why we need to give you some extra review,” Thelem explained. “But you still see a lot of that stuff in your dreams, don’t you?”

“It’s different when I’m not… also drugged,” Astor said. The potions ingested during Forced Consciousness did a lot more than just induce horrific visions--they altered your mental states and thinking as well. Thelem laughed.

“Well, that’s fair.”

Thelem picked up a small golden gyroscope off his desk and pushed it with a finger to spin it around in his hand. He watched it go for a minute, then set it back down on the stand. It reminded Astor of the astrolabe in the sanctum, albeit much, much smaller.

“We owe Mrs. Devohe a pretty penny, I’ll tell you that. But we did manage to get her husband back,” Thelem said. “He was a little beaten up, but it’s nothing a little rest won’t fix. Yiga Clan didn’t take very kindly to him, I presume. I almost don’t blame them.”

Thelem started to laugh, but realized that probably wouldn’t be a very prudent thing of him to do for a donor and a client. Even if the Devohes were less than savory people. “Never wants to eat a banana again,” he said instead.

That elicited a partial laugh from the both of them.

“I agreed to pay their ransom, which Azelphir said I shouldn’t have done, considering the poor guy would’ve been kidnapped either way. But I figured it was the least we could do,” he continued, turning back to his desk. “But, fortunately, I believe we have some folks at Hyrule Castle who’ll be willing to help pick up the tab.” At this, Thelem gave almost something like a wink, and Astor wondered if he was talking about the Royal Seer, or perhaps someone even more important. By the way he gave this look, it really could have been anyone. 

“And, it probably goes without saying, but you’re not going to be assistant Sacristan anymore.”

Astor looked down again in embarrassment. On the one hand, he was happy to not have to spend as much time around Azelphir after what had occurred, but, on the other hand, he had taken pride in the job.

“If I’m being honest, you probably will be again someday, it’s just that Azelphir is still mad at you,” Thelem said. “I think he’s taking it all a bit personally because it happened on his watch. But deep down, I think he’s really grown fond of you.”

Astor wasn’t sure if he believed him on that. He also wasn’t even sure if being on Azelphir’s good side was a good thing, but he supposed it was better than the alternative.

“I would take you on as an assistant myself, but, in light of everything, I think that would be bad optics. Even for me,” Thelem said. Everyone knew Thelem was the one for bending and breaking rules, even though he was Prior, and Azelphir was the one for enforcing them. But even he had to admit that personally taking on the exact student he was supposed to be disciplining was probably a bit too much. “So at least for the next few months, you’re going to be sweeping floors again.”

Well, it was better than nothing.

So they were back to square one. Astor went from doing what felt like very formal, serious work with Azelphir--putting his skills to good use--back to sweeping floors like he always did for Rina. At least he had a lot of practice. Everyone else in the abbey was relieved to not have to do such tedious labor for awhile--they all alternated shifts on janitorial jobs--but it also meant that everyone knew Astor had fucked up by the end of the first day. It also meant, more or less, that everyone knew what he did, and Astor would sweep by quietly as they avoided thinking about it in his presence, and he avoided remembering how ashamed he was about the whole event. 

At least he didn’t have anyone calling him freaky or crazy on top of it anymore. Now, he was just particularly feeling like a failure, and he wondered how many people in the abbey thought it about him as well. At least they were better at being quiet about it than Rina was.

Astor joined his new cohort--the grade below him--and tried to look at the year for review a bit optimistically. He genuinely enjoyed studying, even if there were unfortunate circumstances surrounding it, and even though the students knew he was only there because he had gotten in trouble, he was particularly good at helping them. That was, as long as Azelphir would let him. There were points he’d forbid Astor from speaking.

The newest cohort was just ending their first scrying unit and preparing for their exam, and they needed other students to read for. Azelphir permitted Astor to volunteer--he was slowly getting over his grudge against him--and so Astor showed up to the classroom and sat across from one of the first-years, a tall Gerudo only about a year younger than himself.

She introduced herself as Lumi, and that the Gerudo had a fair number of divination practices of their own, but she had come here to refine them and get fully certified by the kingdom. Her posture and speech radiated a sureness that Astor certainly wished he had had in his first year, and that--if he was being honest--he still lacked to this day. She wore a simple set of turquoise earrings and beads that she had woven into her dark-red braids. The Gerudo were known to be fans of high ponytails, and she had twisted her hair into neat, precise braids that rested atop her head in a large, high bun. A few loose strands fell to either side of her face. Lumi scooted in her chair and studied the voe carefully from across the crystal ball.

She’d heard of him, of course. The unlucky voe who got on Azelphir’s bad side, the mysterious voe with a purported ability to quell monsters. Gazing at him now, she could see the resemblance between himself and the night--dark hair with the braid that fell down into his face, eyes and nose that were almost feminine, pale skin like frigid moonlight. She’d almost go so far as to admit that she thought he was cute, but then she studied him a bit longer and then he reminded her of Azelphir, and he was suddenly much less appealing. 

Azelphir paced around the classroom and indicated for them to begin their readings. Lumi took the stick of incense and wafted it around the table and the crystal ball, then settled back and looked at him.

“Take heed, _aiy val’shaval_ , my questionee,” she said, much more formally compared to how they had introduced themselves. “What is the query you seek?”

This was standard phrasing for divination practice in Gerudo Town, but it still struck Astor as an odd choice, as he’d never heard it used before. But as she asked it, he suddenly realized he hadn’t come prepared with a question--and just said the first thing that came to his mind.

“Where will I be in the future?”

They both stopped, looking at each other, both realizing that what he had just said sounded highly, highly stupid. She cocked her head to the side and tried not to make any indication of further judgement as they both sat in the awkwardness, and she asked for clarification, letting go of the formality just as soon as she had obtained it. “Just, like, in general, or…?”

“No, god, I’m sorry,” Astor said, quickly. “Let’s say, um… where will I be in twenty years? Twenty years on this date.”

Lumi nodded, smiling a bit. They both tried to laugh it off, quietly, as the rest of the room was now in a pensive silence. “Alright, sounds perfect,” she said, lifting her hands to the crystal and beginning to gaze inward. 

After a few moments, the figures started to come into view. She saw old, nearly ancient-looking walls, but the vision was still cloudy. And his energy was so dark. With a strange quality she couldn’t necessarily place…. Astor noted the way she winced and leaned in.

“What is it?” he asked, thinking maybe it was something to do with the reading, and there was something he could do to help her along the way. She continued to turn her head this way and that, but eventually found her bearings.

“Your aura is… very dark,” she said.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing I can’t work around,” Lumi said, doubling down her focus. “It’s something I should be learning how to do, right?”

Astor gave a halfhearted smile, and a nod in agreement, but still sat uncomfortably with the fact that his aura was apparently so inky and black that other people had trouble even viewing it. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. If he had to imagine what it was like for others to read for him, he’d probably guess it was like trying to pin down a shadow in the night. The only hope of seeing his aura, he’d heard, were the vibrant glints of an oily fuschia that occasionally flitted off of it.

Lumi’s vision was now coming into better focus, and she found herself in a temple in the desert. She could see a shadow standing in the center of the room--a shadow she could only assume to be Astor--surrounded by torches and large, sandstone pillars running up the walls.

“You’re in a temple,” she said. “At least, I think it’s a temple. You’re at an altar, candles--no. Torches. Both. Surrounding you.” A flash of gold caught the side of her vision, and she leaned in and squinted again, as if somehow physically moving would bring clarity to her psychic view. “There’s… gold? Everywhere.”

Astor raised his eyebrows, interested.

“No wait,” Lumi said, staring longer. She saw the wooden crates lining the back wall, up near some of the stairs. The distinctive shape reminded her particularly of… “Bananas?”

Astor winced. Oh no.

While Lumi tilted her head to the side, confused, Astor crossed his fingers under the table. Maybe this was a misunderstanding, maybe he was being held hostage… but it was starting to seem like, even in metaphysical reality, he could not, for some reason or another, escape the unrelenting torment of the Yiga Clan, despite never having encountered them in person.

Lumi shook her head, unable to make any real sense of it. “No matter. They’re far away. I can’t really tell. They’re background noise, mostly. Though, now that I can see better, the architecture… it’s familiar to me.” She zeroed in more and then stopped. Astor noticed as she froze slightly, her breathing coming to a stop before she caught herself again. “It’s Gerudo. Definitely.”

Astor stared at her. Lumi looked up between the crystal and the candlelight and all the magic in the reading came to a halt as her eyes narrowed, glinting in suspicion and the slightest bit of mistrust. Her voice was low, but not necessarily venomous.

“We haven’t let voe in our temples for centuries.”

They both stopped there, Astor not sure what to say, for a moment more until Lumi realized she was probably coming off as aggressive and needed to refocus. Just stick to the reading. Worry about other things later. She shook her head and straightened back up in her seat. She turned back to the crystal hoping to gain more information.

“Well. No matter. I get the sense that you’re employed… somehow. By someone… very powerful,” she said. She paused again, racking her brains for this. The energy was a strong one, and somehow, it felt vaguely Gerudo, but she did not necessarily like it. “I can’t tell who. But the temple is so familiar… it’s not one in Gerudo Town, no. But it has the same architecture. But it looks…”

She stopped again, realizing she could see the statues on the walls and perhaps could use them to help pin the location. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… “Eight,” she said, quietly. 

“What?”

She counted again. That couldn’t possibly be correct. She started one way, making sure to note that she began counting at the first one to the left of the door, then counted clockwise, then back the other way again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… eight. No. She looked back up at him, even more dumbfounded and confused than she ever had been before.

“There are eight Heroines.”

Astor looked to her in a different sort of confusion. “What does that mean?”

“Statues. They’re--” she stopped. She didn’t have a good way to put it. It would be too much of a distraction to go into all the history in the middle of a reading. Astor watched her waver back and forth, starting and stopping, until she finally found a good compromise. “Gerudo mythology. We have seven of them. But there used to be eight...” 

This was certainly no temple she had ever heard of. And that meant it was either very bad, or very old.

But as Lumi tried to gather herself, the black smoke around the hooded figure finally cleared. She watched him look up to where the smoke dissipated and reach his hands up to remove the hood.

She gasped.

“What?” Astor asked, nervously. Lumi was paralyzed there for a moment, then started shifting her eyes frantically around the vision, following the visage of the man as a paralyzing glint of gold reflected off from the light of the flames surrounding him. His eyes were amber--much like the boy in front of her’s own--but between them was the unnerving gaze of a third eye above them. Sickeningly red with a piercing, unnatural yellow. Unblinking. All-knowing. Ever-seeing.

In spite of the pillar of ice that shot through her spine, Lumi managed to collect herself. She thought it best to start with the least alarming of these qualities. “Your skin is… gray. It looks almost bloodless. And you have this… eye,” she said, coming to a stop.

“Eye?” Astor asked. But then he watched her lift the stick of incense, turn it over and snuff it out, letting it stick directly upward into the sand of the burner. That was the sign first-year students used to communicate when they were distressed by a reading. 

Azelphir picked up on the cue almost immediately and swept over to the table.

“What seems to be the problem here?” he asked, looking over to them.

“I’m seeing… an eye,” Lumi said, quietly. “I just want to make sure it’s correct.”

Azelphir took hold of her shoulder and pressed his fingertips to the crystal ball. Lumi and Astor waited there in bated apprehension while they watched the familiar glaze run over Azelphir’s own eyes. In another moment or two, he blinked and was back in the present.

“Your instinct is correct. That is what you see,” he said. But he knew she hadn’t been through Forced Consciousness yet, and he needed to pick her out of this situation immediately.

_“What?”_

“Why??”

“Lumi,” Azelphir said, cutting them both off. “If you don’t mind, I will be taking the reading from here.”

Astor and Lumi looked to each other, frantically. The rest of the class had not yet noticed. Azelphir continued, calmly. His voice was pressed, but still matter-of-fact. “I believe this has much stronger implications than those you are yet prepared to deal with, and I will answer to them privately.”

That was bad.

“Students, sorry to interrupt,” he said, raising his voice and looking out to the rest of them. A few of them jolted awake from their reading. “I’m afraid I must attend some business elsewhere and can’t stick around to supervise you. This does not mean class is concluded. I’ll be sending someone else in to look after you shortly. In the meantime, review your notes, study for your exam, but do _not_ think my absence means you are off the hook. Far from it.”

Astor recognized the grasp that Azelphir was gripping onto his cloak with. It was the same one he’d used when they were confronted by Mrs. Devohe. He was either angry at him or defensive, and Astor had not even sorted out which one it was from last time. His stomach dropped, and blood rushed out of his place, and he prayed he wasn’t in trouble again as he racked his brains for anything he could have possibly done wrong. But he hadn’t done anything wrong, he was just sitting there.

Azelphir all but picked him up by the shirt and dragged him out to the hall. His footsteps were rushed, he refused to let go of Astor, and Astor was nearly tripping over himself trying to keep up. The only reprieve he got was a split second of rest when Azelphir crossed paths with another elder in the hall and demanded that he go watch over the classroom immediately. The poor seer nodded and headed off without argument, not wanting to be caught up in the storm.

Azelphir pulled Astor all the way to his office, where he drew the curtains closed, lit incense, and hastily began cleansing the space. Astor sunk down into the chair. His chest was pounding. He felt like he would suffocate there.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Azelphir said, shortly. Astor couldn’t tell if the urgency there was concern or irritation. It was probably both.

After a few more seconds of hasty cleansing, Azelphir took his seat across from him and readied the crystal ball. There was a pause. “How much of this do you want to know?” he asked, looking to him gravely.

This question took Astor aback. Not only was he still trying to orient himself after being dragged all the way through the entire abbey, but it was Azelphir’s general modus operandi to _tell everything_. It was what he hammered into them again and again every day in class. Why would he be giving him a choice?

Azelphir could see the confusion written all over the boy’s face and decided to pick up for him. “I’m asking you because you have the chance not to ask. I have verified to you that I have seen the eye, and, if you so wish, we can leave it at that,” he explained. “You’ve not yet asked a question that would elicit any need for further knowledge on the subject, beyond what Lumi has already revealed to you. But if you ask, I will be obligated to tell you what I see.”

Astor took a deep breath in. He knew asking was a big responsibility. But he needed answers. Maybe at last this would explain his visions. His dreams. The monsters. Something, anything. If anything he wanted, he wanted clarity. Even if it was only a sliver of a thread. A suggestion of a memory.

“Please tell me everything you know,” Astor said. 

Azelphir nodded. “Then I will begin.”

Astor watched Azelphir settle his focus on the crystal ball. He’d seen his teacher work many times, of course, but hardly had he watched him scry. A full focus took over him--longer and stronger than the focus he’d used to peer in on Lumi’s vision before--and he used it to dig for the answers that Astor sought. Many things rushed by him at once, but, in his thirty-two years of professional reading, he was more than equipped to catch them as they spun by.

There were things he was not allowed to see. The sensation of blocking, of blotting out, was familiar to him. A white smoke would envelope the surroundings and he knew that this was Fate’s way of telling him to tread no farther. But he went where he could. He saw Astor, the eye, the Castle, and faces and figures and voices of many, many others rising and tumbling around him. Darkness. Malice. It stopped there. 

Azelphir saw the shadow of the figure standing there in the pool of blackness, and then the glowing of his eye. It lingered here only for a moment until the visions all rushed by again. And, overall--in spite of all the winding, spiraling images that crossed him--the castle, the smoke, the Malice, the wasteland--he was filled with a deep sense of knowing. Astor had asked him to know, not see, so perhaps this was why the vision had manifested in this way. It was nothing he hadn’t experienced before. But the circumstances, even he had to admit, were dire.

At last, when all the motions and whispers had quieted, Azelphir rested and took a step back. There were moments that repeated--the Castle, the eye, the cloak, the wilderness--and he knew now all the information he was meant to bestow. He readied himself to deliver it.

Astor looked up to him, urgently, as if the outcome of the rest of his life depended on the words he would give. Because in a way, it did.

Azelphir was back in the present now, and he looked back at Astor, earnestly. The veil of his hostility was completely broken, and he was addressing Astor in a way that Astor had not seen him do even with an particularly unlucky client. Even before he began to speak, Astor had some kind of sense of the gravity of the situation.

“Astor,” he began, slowly. “Do you remember what I told you about telling hard truths? And the responsibility you bear when you ask to know them?”

Astor was overcome with this horrible, sinking feeling. A strange and terrible certainty that something awful was about to happen. “Yes,” he said, quietly.

“I am now going to put into practice what I told you. This is the full extent of our responsibility as a Seer, and I am demonstrating it to you currently, so take note,” Azelphir said. Each one of his words was slow and deliberate. He was keeping sterile, almost surgical in his approach, the way he had trained his students to be. For this, ultimately, was only but another one of Fate’s trials.

“You asked me to tell you what I know. And from this reading, there are three things which I know with absolute certainty,” Azelphir said, clinically. He looked Astor dead in the eyes to assure he was listening so that he would only have to convey such knowledge once. “The first is that you are going to become the Royal Seer. The second is that you are going to be sent into exile. And third, somewhere along the line, you are going to devote your life to Calamity Ganon.”

Astor stopped. He thought at first thought he hadn’t heard the words. He had. But he was detached from himself--unable to fully process what he’d been told. “What--?” he asked, through his haze.

“I cannot see how or why,” Azelphir continued. “In some cases, I have been prevented from doing so entirely. But I see you with the Eye. And I know now that you get it as the result of a very dark offering. Likely, a blood pact.”

The knowledge was dawning on him. Astor felt its shadowy encroach...

“I’ve seen you in Hyrule Castle, wearing the Royal Seer’s robes. You work closely with the King and Queen. But I was prevented from hearing their voices. There was interference in the vision. Fate, as she would have it, does not want all the details revealed to you at this time. The prophecy came to me in the form of knowledge, rather than through sight, which is mostly how I’m telling it to you,” Azelphir said.

Astor was now gripped by its shadow. Only moments away from staring in the face of a beast he had long sensed, but never seen. He could not react. He could not speak. Azelphir saw him freeze, but he continued on.

“I saw an argument between you and the King. I witnessed him raise his hand and point at you, and, although I could not hear the words, the knowledge bestowed upon me revealed that you were being sent into exile. You left that evening, riding away on a black horse.”

Azelphir paused here, waiting to see that the boy still had enough wits about him to follow. It appeared that he did, even hostage there as he was. He was taking it well so far, at least.

“I could not see exactly where you went. There was a lapse in time, Fate blinded me from certain portions. I saw the mist of the Lost Woods, I saw the sand of the Gerudo Desert. Either of these places could be where you end up, but I was not permitted to know,” he continued.

“I saw you in a pool of Malice--that is what the sludge in your dreams is called,” he explained. He saw the confounded wave of recognition on Astor’s face. At last, it was time for him to confess. “We in the Order have seen it in our visions for a long time, but we could not disclose it to you as it only appeared in private Vespers. We know it is the mark of Calamity Ganon, and that some of it still remains deep within Hyrule Castle. And the Eye… it, too, is a mark of Ganon. Perhaps a way for him to peer into this world.”

 _Malice_. Astor repeated the word to himself. Thinking on it, he couldn’t find a more suitable name.

“For some reason or another--I was not permitted to see--you devote your life to Calamity Ganon. This part I know. For, in the final stage of that pact, you receive the Eye.”

Astor heard, but still could not speak.

“This is very serious news, Astor,” Azelphir said, tapping his fingers on the table and looking back to the orb. The vision was gone. There was nothing more to see. “I almost pity you, as someone so young, having to hear it. But this is the responsibility you bear as a querent, and the obligation you are bound to as a Seer. You have asked to know, and now you know. We have asked to see, and we have seen.”

The words bound them like a contract. It was, indeed, a sacred oath the two of them had sworn.

“I am disappointed, almost, that you renounce Fate as your only master. That certainly isn’t how we’ve trained you,” Azelphir said. “But still, even this, she has decreed. So truly, the greatest act of service you can to do her is to follow her command.” 

There was a reflective air rising in his voice now. And there was quiet in the moment, settling from the inky chaos of the spinning fog. “But judgments and speculations, of course, are not mine to make. I only report what I see.”

Astor nodded. The two of them paused, although Astor still did not have the strength to speak. He felt like something was physically holding him there, covering his mouth, even preventing him from so much as thinking out of line.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that you cannot change this. What has been set in motion cannot be taken from motion, and this thread was woven long before any of us came into being. You will devote your life to Calamity Ganon. How you will get there remains to be seen.”

The tension in the room released. There was nothing else that needed to be said. The snare had seized Astor, entirely, and the remaining pressure sank dead to the floor.

“If you need to be excused from class to process this information, I will allow it, as long as you return in a day or two. This is about as serious as learning of one’s own death,” Azelphir told him. “Which should still be quite familiar to you, given your training, but you are young, and we are not in Forced Consciousness now. Everything I am telling you is real, and will come to pass, absolutely.”

Astor could only manage a nod.

“I won’t tell you how to spend that time, but I’d recommend you pray,” his teacher said again. “This is a heavy cross to bear, and it is crosses like these that are the reason we spend so much time attuning in the first place.”

There was a long silence. Seconds maybe passed into minutes, but it did not seem relevant in a room where time did not exist. Astor at last felt the force loosen its hold on him, and he had the strength to stand. “Yes, I understand. Thank you, Azelphir,” he said, bowing his head to him. “I guess now, at least I know.”

“Indeed you do.”

There was another pause. Astor couldn’t move. Azelphir, somehow, felt the need to comfort him.

“I am sorry I could not be the bearer of happy news,” he said, with a sigh of admittance. “But Fortune, you should know, is not always quite happy.”

Astor nodded. He stood there staring, unsure if he even had the fortitude to go on. Leaving this room meant stepping back into a future where this would occur. But he knew that he would leave the room either way, for his thread was not to be cut here. So he at last bid a strained farewell to Azelphir and headed back down the hall, knowing now that things that were only supposed to stay in his dreams would not stay there forever. Azelphir nodded goodbye and watched him go, knowing full well that the first part of his prophecy had already begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! not to leave you all on a cliffhanger but this might be the last update i post for a little bit because i want to start finishing up the next book for my other series. 
> 
> i have everything planned out on a schedule and I do plan to return in a semi timely fashion! 
> 
> i'll also still be updating stories from exile occasionally, but we've just hit the point of no return for this, and so the next parts of this are going to take my attention and i want to do them justice when i do return to them. 
> 
> i hope you've enjoyed act one of our three act extravaganza.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for brief mentions of suicide and suicidal thoughts

He needed to know the truth.

He knew the future, yes, and while he knew that this was objectively the truth, he could not believe it. He had more questions than answers. But all the answers, he knew, likely pertained to Calamity Ganon. So while it was answers he needed, he didn’t particularly know if he actually wanted them to begin with.

The thought of the eye plagued Astor all night. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened after he stepped out of Azelphir’s office, but all of a sudden it was evening, and he was standing outside on the abbey’s grounds overlooking the water that separated Hyrule Forest Park from the Castle itself. Staring blankly up at the spires climbing into the sky. The tips of his fingers were frigid. His lips, nose, and eyes almost burned from the way the lingering moisture clung around his sinuses, frosted by the wind. Fall was coming on fast, and the nights were bringing unexpected cold snaps that shocked the air into submission and startled the plants around him.

When he came to, he looked around and shuddered, turning his head back to the abbey trying to get a sense of the time. He prayed he hadn’t been out here long enough to miss anything. But with the remaining light in the sky, he knew it wasn’t dark enough for the Vespers, so at least he hadn’t missed those yet. Daylight was dying quickly though, and with the towering shadow of the Castle almost directly west of them, there was hardly any light left on this corner of Hyrule.

Astor looked down into the water. It was beautiful, but impossible to see how deep it went. The rocks dropping off near the edge where he was standing were not clean. Their edges were sharp and jagged, the incline was steep. There was a bit of land with a more gradual incline a bit north of here where the water was accessible, and he and his other classmates would go down there when they were younger. But from this height here, it was probably at least a twenty foot drop. It wouldn’t be clean, or easy, and the water would be harsh on impact. But, if he were theoretically to jump, he likely wouldn’t even be able to leap far enough to clear the rocks, and his theoretical impact would be even messier and more unpleasant, even if it eventually ended well.

It was cold. He should probably get back inside.

Astor took one last look back up to the Castle--a looming, massive structure that emanated as much beauty as it did oppressiveness due to its jagged towers that seemed often to want to pierce into the clouds--and he thought about everyone living on the inside. From here, he could see lantern lights glowing and candles burning in the windows--the torches that lined the fortress walls. Hyrule Castle itself was like a city of its own. How many maids, servants, cooks, butlers, poets, advisers, soldiers, all lived there in their own accord? And then, of course, the Regent King and the presumptive Queen. How many of them had earned their station, and how many of them were there by birth?

The answer was that all of them were there by birth, even those who had worked particularly hard to get there. Because all things were determined by Fate. In fact, the whole kingdom of Hyrule reeked with people who were chosen--chosen to be peddlers, chosen to be farmhands, chosen to be kitchen sweeps and Kings and Queens and Heroes and Princesses, and makers and defiers of prophecy. And, of course, those chosen to live and serve behind the regal gates of Hyrule Castle.

He’d be there with them, someday, supposedly. If he could make it through the horrific night.

He’d never at all minded the night. The quiet brought him comfort and solitude, even bolstered him, energized him. Something about the darkness was comforting--it almost felt like a sentient presence that could whisper to him and care for him in a more truthful and understanding way than even his own mother could. But even this he started to call into question. Because who loved monsters more than the night? Maybe that was the real reason night always felt like home.

Astor turned from the Castle and headed back into the abbey just as the Vespers were beginning. No one seemed to notice that he was missing for the past several hours, and the dim candlelight shrouded the redness in his eyes, nose, and ears, which at least gave him comfort that he wouldn’t receive a line of questioning. He mouthed his way through the prayers, halfheartedly. In fact, in many instances, the words would not come at all. He knew them, of course, but, for whatever reason, his spirit would not allow the wind to cross his lips.

The lights were dull and unimpressive. The bluish glow from the astrolabe and the surrounding constellations did nothing to stir him. He was standing in a haze--a gray, blotted filter that slowed his movements, quieted his lips, and shrouded his vision. At one point, he was shaken awake when he saw a brief flash of red that almost seized him, coming off the astrolabe. The whole inner sphere--and in fact, the entire dome--ignited in a flash of a brilliant, violet red not dissimilar from his own aura. But when no one else reacted, he realized he must have been the only one who saw it.

Vespers ended, and he faked his way through Compline, and then, instead of returning to his cell immediately like many others did--as their rigid schedule only allowed for about six hours of sleep--Astor wandered back out onto the grounds and absentmindedly hopped the fence, as the gate was already locked. He’d never actually hopped a fence before, but he was mindless, outside of himself, almost as if being drawn by an external, all-consuming force. Before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of the dark, cobblestone street, with not another soul in sight.

He took off running.

The air against his face was cold. The air in his lungs was colder. He didn’t know where he was going. But once he crossed the fence, he just started running. The stones were mostly even--smoothed down from frequent travel, being so close to Castle Town--but his feet landed hard against the stone in shoes that were only meant for prayer and walking. Nothing on him was meant for running. The robes, the shoes, the hair, the sashes--but he pressed on, encumbered and tripping over himself as he was. He just needed to run. Leave. Escape. Die.  _ Anything _ .

The blood in his head pounded against his temples. But it wasn’t just the blood in his temples or the air racing through him. There were screeching, horrifying sounds he could hear in the darkness, despite only coming from his own mind. And above all the pulsing in his head, there was a blazing heat rising up his arteries, crawling up around his brow and gathering focus right between his eyes. Dead set in the middle of his forehead. 

The images flashed through him as he ran. The feeling of something draining his blood, feasting off his body, leeching, living,  _ seeing  _ everything as he could. His skin, ashy gray. His aura, inky black. With oily bits of fuschia just like the sludge--the  _ Malice _ \--in his dreams. The thoughts, the visions, and the energy seared within him and drove into the middle of his skull like a knife, and eventually drew so much pain that he stumbled forward, losing his step and toppling over himself onto the ground.

He was lying alone on the side of the road. His head was throbbing, but for a different reason now. A familiar heat, a tingling sensation flowed outward on his palms. He’d scraped them pretty badly. He wiped them on his robes in a hasty attempt to clean them off as he reached for his head. He hadn’t hit it directly, but it had scraped against some of the foliage, and he could feel a similar tingling and warmth. His hair was long enough, and the scratch was high enough near his forehead that he hoped it wouldn’t leave too much of a mark, but he could tell he was bleeding.

A rustling sound came from the woods. Astor froze. For a second, he hoped it was a bear or some other creature that would come to feast, lured out by the iron stench of his blood, but a pair of blue, almost-glowing pupil-less eyes emerged from the bush. A small, stubby horn between them, and a large, piglike nose scouting the way.

He was face to face with a bokoblin who had caught the fresh scent of his blood.

Astor did not move. This was all too familiar to him. And, although he almost hoped the outcome would be different--and it should have been, if he was anyone else--the hideous creature did not attack. Instead, it continued to inspect him, cocking its head back and forth as if to size him up correctly, but not in a way to eat him. 

Astor reached his hand out toward the creature, but it shrunk back, startled. Astor rose. It cowered there below him, despite them being nearly a similar size. The earth shook. He turned and saw two more stalkoblins rise behind him who both, like the bokoblin, stopped in surprise. He felt a strange sense of power overcome him, but it was not yet a power he wanted to wield.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked. He didn’t know if they could understand him, but the words felt right. He was still outside of himself, stuck in a dreamlike--no, nightmarish--haze. But this time, he knew he wasn’t sleeping.

There was a pause. The creatures looked around to each other, almost as if now they, too, were afraid to move. And then the first one curled its head down to the earth, performing an odd gesture somewhere between a grovel and a genuflection. The other stalkoblins did the same. Astor looked around and realized that they were bowing in reverence to him.

No.

Astor’s feet gave out from under him. He let out a curling shriek like he never had before--sending the monsters and other animals scattering back into the trees--until his voice strangled itself and he pounded his fists into the ground beneath him. He started ripping out the grass and throwing it aside. The breath in his chest was heaving, pressing tight against his knees folded under him. The blood seeping from his forehead, the salt of his tears streaming down his face only frustrated him more and sent him further into this spiraling delirium.  _ No. No. No. No. NO.  _

Twenty years. Two decades. He had two decades before he became some kind of vessel or servant for Calamity Ganon and succumbed to his inevitable fate. But in truth, he was already on his way. In fact, he was as good as Ganon’s already. The monsters had already proven that to him. Maybe they’d always known.

Moments passed. He stayed there for awhile, hoping he might batter himself into the earth hard enough to wake from his horrible slumber, but he knew he couldn’t, because he knew he wasn’t sleeping, and eventually, his body and his breath calmed enough to where he--while by no means accepting it--simply gave up.

Astor woke up in the abbey. He was thankful he’d at least made it back before anyone noticed. Crossing paths with another human being during the whole ordeal would have utterly eviscerated him. The monsters were enough to deal with as it was.

After his second near-sleepless night, he knew he had to consult someone. While Thelem had been particularly busy of recent, Astor managed to corner him in-between classes and ask if he could discuss something privately. They met in his office later, after the second class session had let out for the day, and even before they made it back, Thelem could tell something was greatly distressing him. Astor was always pale, but Thelem knew him well enough to know his typical pale from his faint one. He opened the door to his office and led Astor inside.

“What is it?” he asked, coming around to his desk.

“I want to talk to you about something… very serious,” Astor said, quietly. He hung near the edge of the doorway, wriggling his feet slightly, not knowing whether or not he was okay enough to sit down.

“Well, of course, please,” Thelem said, waving him in to come closer and take a seat across from him.

“No I’m… I’m good standing for now.”

Thelem turned his head slightly and assessed him. He hadn’t seen Astor this upset since the day he thought he was going to get expelled. By the look of it, Thelem guessed something must have happened to make him believe he’d be expelled again. And, while his hair covered most of it, Thelem could just make out a bit of a scrape on the boy’s forehead.

“Alright, suit yourself,” he said, sitting back. He lifted the tiny golden gyroscope from his desk and gave it a spin. “So what’s wrong?”

“Thelem,” Astor began, choking. He swallowed his nerves and tried to press through it by picking up the pace. “Azelphir said I--”

Thelem frowned. He stopped fiddling with the gyroscope and placed it back down, more serious. “He hasn’t been giving you a hard time still, has he?”

“No he--” Astor said. Well, Azelphir _ had _ been giving him a hard time for a little bit before this, but Astor hadn’t even noticed in the current light of, well, everything. He hadn’t been in class since the day of the reading, now two days ago. “I went into one of the first year classes the other day to help with readings,” he said. “My reader said she saw this eye…”

Thelem raised his eyebrows. So perhaps it was finally time. “An eye?” he asked.

Astor nodded. Something in Thelem’s inflection made Astor think he already knew, and that made the transition a bit easier. “Azelphir stopped her and took me back to his office and he explained everything.”

“Oh? Everything?” Thelem said. That was interesting. There was probably much then that Azelphir currently knew that even he still did not. “What do you mean?”

“You--he--” Astor said. He stopped. Maybe he had misread his teacher’s expression. “You don’t know?”

“We don’t talk about our readings to other people, Astor, that’s a violation of privacy,” Theelm said. The tone of his voice wasn’t patronizing, but it was humorless, and matter-of-fact, as this was something that they reiterated again and again in class. 

“But this is pretty important.”

“Okay then. I’m ready,” Thelem said. He rocked a bit in his chair, totally open and relaxed as if the news Astor was about to tell him was not the most serious information Astor had ever said in his life. Astor continued to shift there, wringing his hands together as if it could somehow strangle to death the news he had to bear.

“I want you to… verify it,” Astor said. “I know what Azelphir said is true I just… I don’t know. I need you to talk about it to me. And I need you to see it. Please.”

“Alright, what is it?”

There was a long silence. Astor could not continue to suffocate in his own body. Despite his nerves, and through a fair amount of effort, he managed to coax the words out of his throat, one by one. “Azelphir said I was going to devote my life to Calamity Ganon,” he said, finally. When Astor turned his eyes back up to him, Thelem could see that there was so much genuine terror behind them. The expression was familiar to Thelem, and it brought a numb, yet piercing ache to his heart.

“Oh?” he asked. Astor didn’t know what to say next. Thelem was treating this all so casually that Astor wasn’t even sure if he had really heard him. But he had. It was just that Thelem was an expert at remaining calm, and there was very little information left in this world he could ever receive that would shake him to his core. “Is that all?” Thelem asked again.

“He said I’d make a pact with him and…” Astor swallowed, even though his mouth was dry. “And I’m going to be sent into exile.”

“Now?”

“No.”

“When?”

“Eventually.”

Beat. Thelem leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on his desk. “Hm,” he said, giving a slow and thoughtful scratch to his chin. This gesture was more just to assure Astor that he was still listening, but just pausing to consider something deeply. Astor could tell he was debating something with himself--or, at the very least, putting a few dots together--as Thelem reached for the small bowl filled with bloodstones on his desk and began rolling one around in his hand. Astor watched while he played with it, but soon he couldn’t take the silence any longer.

“Thelem, will you please read for me?” 

“It sounds to me like you already have all your answers, I don’t know what you’re asking me for.”

“I just--” he stopped again. What  _ was  _ he doing here? He supposed he needed comfort, if anything, and he always went to Thelem when he didn’t know what else to do. “It was all really sudden. It’d make me feel better if you did.”

That was certainly what Astor needed. If anything Thelem knew he could do in this moment, it was at least try to make him feel better. Maybe that was his purpose here all along. He rose. “Well, alright then,” he said. “That’s enough reason for me.” Thelem reached for the scrying crystal on a nearby shelf, removed the sheet of velvet that he used to cover it, and motioned for Astor to come nearer. “Then please, sit.”

This time, Astor had strength enough to approach. Thelem lit incense and wafted it around the crystal--much more slowly than he had ever seen Azelphir do--placed three small tea lights around it, then settled down to do the reading.

Astor watched as a familiar absence washed over Thelem’s gaze. His reading pace was much slower than many others in the abbey, even those men who were much older than him. He took each step through the vision purposefully, yet casually--as if he could be going for a stroll in the rose garden on the abbey’s grounds rather than peering into someone’s portending, and even dystopian, future. Thelem’s sense of peace brought Astor a deep calm, and Astor considered how it must make him quite excellent at reading for even the most frantic of clients.

Thelem took a slow and deliberate circle around the vision Lumi had encountered with much more clarity than the fog she experienced as a novice. That was certainly the eye he had there. The architecture was Gerudo, made sense. He was smoke scrying, typical. Glad to see Astor’s preferences wouldn’t change much over the years. The boy-- _man,_ of thirty-six now--seemed to be holding his own astrolabe. It emanated a purplish-red glow rather than familiar blue, and the smoke he was scrying with was coming up from within the sphere itself. Kind of alarming, but, all aspects considered, added up. A few banana crates around in the distance. He chuckled.

After another poke around here and there, Thelem switched perspectives and saw the King, the Castle, the Royal Seer’s robes much to the same effect Azelphir had. The reddened expression on the King’s face definitely spelled exile, and Thelem knew the words without having to hear them. Astor’s horse was nice. Black with little tufts of white fur. Almost looked like it was wearing socks.

Astor looked on in distress, his eyes wavering back and forth between Thelem’s own, waiting anxiously for him to return. Some Seers narrated their visions as they went, but Thelem, like Azelphir, was not one to do so. Not until he’d seen all there was to see, and the querent started asking questions for clarification. The moments were silent, but at least this time Astor knew what he was in for. After another moment or two, he saw Thelem blink and return to himself.

“Well?”

Thelem settled back into his chair. “Well it appears to me that Azelphir was one hundred percent correct. Which isn’t surprising, but, if you need to hear it from me,” he leaned in and looked Astor in the eyes. He would have taken him by the hand to break the news like a father, but Astor was more than likely sitting on them to keep himself from fidgeting too much. He made sure the boy was calm and attentive before he continued.

“You will work for the Royal Family of Hyrule, graduate from here, be put into exile, and devote your life to Calamity Ganon,” he said, pausing to assure the worst of it was over. Astor looked back at him. “After you’re banished, you run away on a black horse. Maybe wind up with the Yiga Clan. Get the Eye of Malice on your forehead.” At this, Thelem reached up and gave Astor a playful tap on the middle of the forehead. “Right there,” he said, smiling. “Suits you.”

Astor blinked. At least Thelem was nicer about it. He didn’t particularly know how he felt about the  _ ‘suits you’ _ part, though. In fact, Astor was just as bewildered as he was nearly offended that Thelem was making such light of the whole situation. But maybe it was better than Azelphir telling him to suck it up and deal with it the way he always did. Astor took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts.

“Can anything be done?” he asked.

“No,” Thelem said. This time, he did give Astor a patronizing glance. “Astor, you should know this.”

“I know. I just--” Astor hesitated again. The words kept falling off. “I don’t know what I wanted to hear. I just wanted to speak with you about it.”

“I understand.”

There was a long silence. Thelem blew out the stick of incense and stuck it back into the holder, then snuffed out each of the candles, opposite the way he had lit them. He again reached for another bloodstone to roll around in his hands. He lifted it up to his eyes to examine the tiny specks of red that broke up its deep, morbid green as he began to speak.

“You know, I had a sense from the beginning that you had great power, you remember. I always thought Fate had drawn you to us. And while that’s true for everyone, for you, I got the sense that it was especially true,” he said. “That’s why I went all the way out to Hateno Village to find what I was looking for.”

Astor smiled, but in an unhappy sort of way. He didn’t particularly know if it was good to remember anymore. “But this isn’t great power. This is… this is evil,” he said.

Thelem reached into his pocket and pulled out a very familiar-looking coin--the one with the sign of the Order both upright and inversed--which he’d shown to Astor very shorty after they’d left Hateno. He slid it across the desk to him. “Two sides of the same coin, Astor. Good and evil,” he said. “It’s not our place to make judgments. It’s our job to see.”

Astor took the coin in his hand and examined it. He knew he still had his lying around in his cell somewhere. But if he was being honest, he’d kind of forgotten about it.

“In our world, we have prophecies full of heroes.  _ Histories  _ of them. But this also must mean that our prophecies are just as littered with villains. Because heroes couldn’t be heroes without them,” Thelem said. He turned the bloodstone around in his hands again. There was a bit of a scratch in it. He set it back down in the bowl and lifted the gyroscope again. 

“You, unfortunately, drew the short end of the short end of the stick. Through no fault of your own, of course. That was just a stroke of some particularly bad luck. Looks to me as if you’re going to end up on the side of the villains in this story, but villainy and luck are matters of perspective, really.”

Thelem gave the little golden sphere another spin. For as slow, calm, and deliberate of a person as he was, he certainly seemed to enjoy fidget toys. But perhaps that was part of why he was always able to remain so calm in the first place. 

“Objectively, is it evil? Yes. Calamity Ganon has brought on great destruction to our world that we’re still recovering from, ten thousand years later,” he said. “But that’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way Fate made it to be. By Her will, not ours. Not Ganon’s, even. Whether or not he likes it, he’s subject to her just like the rest of us. Don’t forget that.”

Astor nodded.

“So if we’re going to ascribe blame to evil here--if we’re going to ascribe evil to Ganon--then we must also ascribe the same measure of blame to Fate, who allowed it all to be so in the first place,” he said. He could still see the terrified and confounded expression on Astor’s face, who was for the first time perhaps truly grappling with the full extent of the evil Fate was capable of bestowing upon mankind. “Fate is not a cruel, kind, or forgiving god. Fate is an inescapable force that rules above all--good  _ and  _ evil. And that is why we submit to and revere her unquestioningly.”

While Astor had heard it plenty of times before, this news, now, was particularly hard to swallow. Devotion to Fate and neutrality certainly came at a hefty--and confusing--price.

“So there is a great evil inside you, yes. There is a growing darkness that you someday are going to have to confront. That would probably explain why all the monsters see you as one of them, now wouldn’t it,” Thelem said with a bit of a laugh. Astor wanted to laugh alongside him, the way he always would, but couldn’t find it in himself to do so anymore. “But, you’re far from the only one carrying the blame here. Would you consider yourself evil now?”

“I…” Astor’s voice trailed off. That was a lot to consider for the time being. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make that decision for the rest of his life. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Well, that’s alright. That’s for you to decide,” Thelem replied. “It may be woven into your fate, but even we don’t know all the details yet. There’s no telling how you get there beforehand, and where you go after unless we do some more looking. But for now, I consider you a student. A mentee. A friend. What happens down the line will happen, and we shouldn’t fret about it too much.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So we’ll continue to train you, just the way we always have. Nothing about you or your learning will fundamentally change just because we’ve had a glimpse into the future,” Thelem said. He turned to Astor and smiled. “After all, it looks like you’ve got a Royal Seer to become.”

Astor began to smile, but paused. That news wasn’t exactly the most comforting in the world, especially now as it seemed to have very grim implications. “Yes. I--” he stopped. The words still weren’t coming. Something was dawning on him for the first time. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m--” he said, struggling with it. “I’m going to devote my life to Ganon. Shouldn’t it be--isn’t that dangerous? For me to be that close to the descendants of Hylia--? Could we get in trouble if anyone knew--”

“Astor, do you remember the assassination of the King and Queen?”

Astor blinked. It took him a moment to process the subject change. Thelem held the gyroscope and waited patiently for Astor to find his bearings and reply. “Yes,” Astor said, finally.

“Clement saw that. He knew the day before it occurred,” Thelem said. Astor sat back. The words laid heavy in the air, but Thelem had no issue navigating them. “He told me the other day when I went for tea.” He paused, considering the implications of that. “It’s safe to say now, of course, they’re both long dead. Still wouldn’t go about telling your friends and family about it, though.”

Astor’s eyes widened. He didn’t even know what to say. They’d had theoretical discussions about it in class, of course, but what was it  _ really _ like to foresee the deaths of the very people you are sworn to protect and serve? To abide by that level of secrecy? While Astor debated all these things to himself, Thelem rose, plucking yet another stone from the dish and carrying it with him to the window.

“What Fate reveals to us privately is to remain private. It is not our role to alter or change. In fact, such things are impossible, inherently,” he said. “So even though it is painful, and may even seem like treason, you have to remember that while we do serve and work with the Royal Family, we do not answer to Hylia. We hardly consider ourselves a part of the kingdom. The rest of the world would think this is unacceptable, of course. But that’s why they aren’t Seers, and they don’t pray seven times a day.”

There was a pause. Thelem peered out to the window again, tossing the stone a bit from hand to hand, then looked back to Astor.

“You must carry on in spite of this knowing that this is your course,” he said. “If the rest of the world knew, yes, they would hate you. Ganon is objectively evil, and you are going to make a pact with him. But we, as Seers, commit to neutrality, and it is not of our place to judge you. And even past that, I don’t judge you at all. You are still the same to me, Astor, and you always will be. Because you have no say in the matter.”

Astor hesitated. While he knew the words were genuine, something in them rang so untrue. Astor knew Thelem would never judge him, but there had to be something. Anything he could do to change it. This just didn’t seem right. He could still think. He could still make choices. There had to be a way.

“That’s not true,” Astor said. He rose up out of the chair, slamming his hands down on the desk a bit harder than he had been expecting. There was a spark igniting in him now. He wasn’t powerless. He couldn’t be.

Thelem caught the stone in his hand and raised an eyebrow at the boy’s shift in demeanor, but Astor pushed back at him.

"I could quit the Order right now. I could stop this all tonight.”

“You won’t.”

“I could die.”

“You won’t.”

“Then I could kill myself,” Astor said with a force. Thelem stopped. He looked Astor up and down to weigh him at his word. This was certainly a new look on him. But Astor pressed on despite him, feeling now that if maybe his defiance burned hot enough, he could find a way to claw himself out of his own damnation. Or, at the very least, he could save others from suffering at his hand. 

“I could still kill myself,” he said again. “I could go out right now and find a monster that would actually eat me or tie weights to my shoes and jump in the--”

“And Calamity Ganon could revive you and make you his servant then and there,” Thelem said. He did not need to adjust his posture, nor even move from the window to quickly become imposing. It was more his prompt and forcible tone that swatted away any of Astor’s remaining nonsense. His voice almost boomed; there was a quiet, yet fiery warning in his eyes that startled Astor, as he’d never seen his teacher so reactive before. But Thelem certainly wasn’t going to let Astor do something that bleak, even in spite of all the bleakness to come.

Astor shrunk. The fire--which had really just been a single, irrational spark--was now effectively snuffed out. He couldn’t kill himself. He didn’t really want to, especially if what Thelem said was true. And it was. Thelem continued.

“You can’t escape Fate, Astor. We say this every day, seven times a day. No action you could possibly take would take Fate by surprise enough to outsmart Her. No mortal or even a god can be that sly.”

Astor looked down and away from him, thinking. The embarrassment of taking his anger that far--and airing a certain amount of his recent death wish to Thelem--was steeping in him, and he could feel the sensation boiling up from his chest and flushing blood into his face. Thelem’s voice was softer and kinder now, seeing how Astor had withered and turned away.

“I know it’s difficult, Astor. But these are the vows you take. You can’t escape Fate, and, in fact, I am expressly forbidding you from taking any action to do so. When you are fully initiated, you will take an oath never to intervene in Fate’s course. To act contrary to what we see in our visions is the highest form of blasphemy to us. It’s just not what we do. Others can try, but it’s not for us. That’s why we take vows.”

There was a pause. Thelem felt Astor’s discomfort and moved closer to him.

“You’re free to leave the Order. You’re free to try, even if you’d be disappointing me and everyone here. But you won’t, and you know deep down that you won’t. Because you like it here, I like you being here, and this is what Fate has declared for you.”

Astor knew it was true. “It’s just--” he sighed. It was of no use. He might as well start getting used to it, because he had a sad, sinking feeling he had a whole world of disappointment to come. “It’s not fair. I really have no say?”

“That’s true, it isn’t fair,” Thelem said. “But we’re not the ones with the pen. We’re not even the ones with the thread, despite how much time we spend with those. Fate writes what fate writes, fate weaves what she weaves, and all of us play our parts, but none of us have a say.”

Astor nodded. There was something so final about it when he put it that way. It was then for the first time that he began to realize he was nothing more than a thread splitting threads in the middle of Fate’s giant tapestry. A tapestry that had already been woven long before the creation of this earth. And try as he may, he’d never be able to unravel it, especially not from within. This really, then, was just all a matter of how long it took him to give up trying.  


“But it doesn’t have to be miserable,” Thelem said, trying to reassure him as he saw the way Astor finally began to piece it all together. “We take the vow of Accordance because we believe it’s the best way to alleviate suffering. Accepting that we are powerless, but taking pride in the fact that we each have our own parts to play. There’s something beautiful in that, even if the roles are tragic. Having no obligation but to be a single thread on a tapestry, connected to and intertwining with so many others.”

Thelem walked back over to his desk and set the bloodstone down. Astor thought it was odd how he did not place it back into the dish with the rest. “Fate may have its unhappy moments. Very unhappy, gruesome moments. But those are down the line. Fighting them will make them worse. So in the meantime, live. Enjoy. This is only a glimpse into one moment, anyway. You could find many more glimpses down the line that provide you with even more clarity. Glimpses that may help you find peace with this knowledge. Future bliss, even.”

This was true. It was brash to think this was the end-all, be-all of his life. Perhaps there was something else he simply wasn’t seeing. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d even find a way out later on in life; something that simply hadn’t been revealed to him right away. “You’re right, Thelem,” Astor said. “Maybe I should try that. Looking some more…”

“Of course,” Thelem replied. “But just understand that no matter what you do, this exile and Calamity Ganon will always be a part of you. But they are not the only part.”

Astor nodded. It was not exactly what he’d like to hear, but he’d do his best to accept it.

“You get to live in the Castle, Astor. You’re going to become the Royal Seer. That’s quite the honor. It’s something most of us can only dream of, really,” Thelem said. He walked over to Astor and gave him a reassuring nudge on his shoulder. “Chin up. Nothing lasts forever anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing all that you do.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the seers from the other regions and the other buildings of the Order of the Seers in this chapter was actually takemetotheastral's idea initially, and i just thought it was so, so cool. so thanks to them for that bit of worldbuilding!! they'll probably come up a bit in stories from exile.

It wasn’t long until everyone knew.

Once Azelphir had dragged Astor out of the room, Lumi--a frightened girl of fifteen only just now learning to divine--was left alone at a table with a small roomful of other novices all staring out to where their teacher had hurriedly disappeared to. Their whispers were rising.

Objectively, Lumi knew she wasn’t supposed to discuss her readings with other people. It was rude, at best, and the Order always talked about how they weren’t supposed to intervene in Fate. But this seemed so serious, and she was still shaken. _She_ needed support now too. So as the others began to ask what happened, she told them. She’d seen Astor in a strange, old temple, with an eye between his forehead that was so harrowing it had pierced an unshakeable fear and horrible sinking feeling right into her soul.

The others got curious as well.

Their speaking quieted as the librarian, Rood, entered the room, a bit frazzled from what must have clearly been a rudely perfunct, whirlwind encounter with Azelphir. They used the rest of class time for review while the poor librarian still tried to get his bearings. But once class was concluded, the students consulted with each other in their free time. They gathered in each others’ cells and did private readings wanting to know more about the boy and the eye.

It started with a harmless little tarot reading. Tarot was a rather tame form of divination that anyone was free to use as it was often so open to interpret. It was also one of the only methods the young students were allowed to use without supervision. But even then, the results were compelling. One reading pulled The Devil--they were particularly drawn to the imagery of the man in chains tied to the seat of the looming, horned figure on the card. Did the man in chains represent Astor in some way? And what was he bound to?

Others pulled The Emperor, The Empress, and Magician. The Emperor and Empress seemed to be together, ruling over them--in fact, it reminded them a lot of the King and the Queen. The Magician along with these cards would appear upright--so it may have just been their superstition, and general mistrust of Astor, but they still had a bad sense of him. Because on its own, the card would often appear in reverse, indicating a great evil, or a misuse of power. Secrets, power, manipulation.

The Tower. Great tragedy. Calamity, destruction. Six and the Seven of Swords. Long travel under dubious circumstances. Stealing away. Leaving everything behind, letting something go, and taking something away in secret. Readings pertaining to him were pulling a lot of major arcana--a special set of twenty-two cards in the deck that often carried more weight than the rest--indicating that there was a lot of power flowing here. Whatever was going on, it was a really big deal.

The word spread to others, and soon some of the other students couldn’t keep themselves from peeking. It was hard, but not impossible to do a reading on a person who wasn’t present--easier done with tarot or pendulum than other methods--but a few particularly talented students in their third year or so had gotten together and managed to confirm that they had seen the eye through a crystal ball. This spread like wildfire, and soon even those who weren’t wholly trained in scrying were doing everything in their ability to try to catch a glimpse of the forbidden, mysterious eye on the strange boy’s forehead.

Astor knew they were talking about him.

When he’d sweep through the common room or pass them in the halls, tightly collected groups of students talking excitedly with each other would glance at him and quiet down until they changed the subject. At first, he thought they were still on about how he’d crossed Azelphir and gotten held back. But then he started to realize there was a different quality about them now. They were sticking closer together, tensing up, some even leaning away and being unusually quiet in class. They weren’t just spreading regular gossip. They were emanating fear.

Rumors were bad at being quiet, as rumors often are, even as the students lowered their voices and tried to keep it among themselves. Everyone at this point knew, so they didn’t necessarily need to address it by name. It became the ubiquitous ‘it,’ and it was the only thing any of them could talk about. _Did you see it? No, I didn’t. It’s part of his body. I heard that’s not true. No, it is, I saw it. I definitely saw it. It’s freaky. It’s scary. It’s horrifying as fuck. Is he hiding it? Does he have it now?_ And while it was mostly spread amongst those who were younger, over the next progressing days, the elders and older novices--those closer to being initiated--started to catch on, at least knowing at first they were talking about Astor, some then picking up on what the whole thing was about. Word finally reached Thelem.

He had to put a stop to it.

The minute he caught wind of it--which was just after lunchtime a little bit less than a week after the whole thing began--he called the entire abbey, even those who weren't involved, into the chapel for a meeting. The elders, at least, had been warned about what was to occur. But even the least perceptive among the students could sense the almost-visible aura of livid heat that was accumulating around their headmaster.

They quietly filed into their seats--straight, wooden pews on either side of a singular aisleway--flanked by arched windows and bits of stained glass that were somehow unassuming in this daylight. They looked around to each other, nervously, but many of them dared not speak. Astor slunk down into his pew as low as he could without drawing attention, thankful he was close to the back corner, away from everyone else. 

Thelem stood in front of the altar, framed by the sweeping arches and tall candles, and the Order’s tapestry that hung like a mosaic on the back wall above him. While he stood firm and grounded, making no extreme outward display of his anger, his stillness spoke volumes, and so despite being only a stair or two above them, he towered up above them to the highest rafter. The rest of the elders stood in the back, with Azelphir, most of all, crossing his arms and raising into something like a self-satisfied grin--just as relieved as he was almost amused, for once, that he was not the one fanning fire and spewing brimstone.

The students settled into their seats and quieted while Thelem scanned the room waiting for them all to stop passing glances to one another. Once they were still, and the chapel was filled with an eerie, harrowing quiet, he began.

 _“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE,”_ he yelled. His voice boomed in the chapel, the arches allowed for acoustics that carried sound that enveloped them. If his voice alone wasn’t enough to startle them, it was simply the fact that no one had ever seen Thelem like this before. But before any of them could fully recover, he started down the stairs and strode quickly down the aisle. A few students leaned away in their seats to avoid coming too close.

“I don’t care who started it, or why. The fact of the matter is that news of this reached me, and it never should have gotten out in the first place.”

He stopped in the middle of the room, assessing them. Everyone shrunk, equally, but everyone knew who was originally involved. If it wasn’t clear what they were here for before, it was very evident now.

“What am I talking about? I think a lot of you _know_ what I’m here talking about,” Thelem said. “Word has gotten out about a private reading that happened between two of our students that contained some pretty serious, sensitive information. The instructor pulled the students _out_ of the reading because the information was that sensitive.” He paused, continuing to pace among them. All their heads were down, Astor’s especially, who was sliding deeper and deeper down into his pew wishing he could simply disappear. Thelem continued.

“And yet, we have students talking about it. We have novices scrying, unsupervised, who shouldn’t be scrying at all. Do you first-years understand that scrying is dangerous?You can go into deep trances and see things that are unexpected and traumatic. We train you to handle them. You might not understand the gravity of that yet, because you haven’t gone through Forced Consciousness, but the rest of us do. That’s why the instructor pulled the two out of the reading, because the reader hadn’t been through Forced Consciousness yet. You can get stuck there. You can lose your mind.”

He stopped. He looked around to the students again--all of whom refused to make eye contact. But they heard the message. “So _none of you_ should be scrying in the first place. Not unless you’re fully initiated do you scry alone.”

He paused here again for even more emphasis.

“But not only do we have novices scrying. We have novices scrying and using any kinds of divination possible so they can get more information on a _private reading_ that happened in a classroom. Just because what happened interrupted your day did not give you license to talk about it. You should not have had license to talk about it at all, because you didn’t even have license to _hear it_.”

Beat. Mention of the classroom suddenly made them realize Azelphir had been eerily quiet about the whole thing thus far, and this lecture likely marked the beginning of at least a week’s worth of punishments that would be dealt out by Azelphir. It was the wrong thing to mess around in his classroom.

“We’re going to talk to the students involved and offer them the correct guidance they need. But the _rest of you_ should not have been involved from the start. This news has gotten out to the entire abbey, and it shouldn’t have left the room. Who’s to say it won’t now spread to the rest of the kingdom?” Thelem asked. “What Fate reveals to you privately remains private. What you read between you and your querent _stays_ between you and your querent. It is not your business to talk about it. It’s an extreme violation of privacy at best. At worst, it’s a direct action against Fate, and, most of all, against _your own vows_.”

Thelem let the words land and stood straight and tall as he loomed over them, preparing to rattle off word-for-word the oath he recited to them every year at the Summit.

“The Vow of Confidentiality: Do you, the Seer, vow to maintain a private and confidential relationship with Fate, revealing only what is revealed between you and your querent, only between you and your querent, and keeping between you and Fate what is only revealed between you and Fate?” he said. “If you cannot answer yes to this, you are not a Seer. Period.” 

The words were heavy. It felt like he’d revoke their positions then and there.

“I’m not one to expel people. I believe you are all very bright and have brilliant futures. So don’t ruin them. Because if this doesn’t stop the minute we walk out of that door, I might just have to.”

They still refused to look at him, but Thelem knew they all understood.

“Get back to class. Think about the vows you take as a Seer. I’ll see you all for Post Meridiem, and this all have better ended by then.”

The students all silently filed out like they were escorting a coffin to a burial, and many of them felt like they were the ones who were buried. Astor got to moving last--not wanting to cross paths with any of them _at all_ \--and Thelem caught him on the way out.

“I’m sorry that this all happened to you,” he said. “And I’m sorry you had to be there for that. But this now pertains to all of us. Because unfortunately, it would appear the whole abbey knows.”

“Yes I’m--I’m a bit used to it,” Astor said, quietly. “I just want it all to be over.”

“Well, we can’t take it back now that it’s out, but at least we can try to minimize damage,” Thelem said. He glanced around again, seeing now that all the students and most of the elders were out. “And, at least, I don’t think anyone else has caught on to the full extent that only the three of us know. Malice isn’t everyday knowledge.”

Astor nodded.

“I want you to have this,” Thelem said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small black arrowhead with a glossy sheen, a bit smaller than the size of his thumb. “It’s an obsidian arrowhead I’ve strengthened with a ward. I’d recommend you attune to and reinforce it on your own, but it should keep out a peeping novice and anyone else unwilling to put in the effort of unraveling it.”

Astor took the arrowhead and put it in his pocket.

“We can go over how to make some better wards sometime too. Throw in a taglock for some misdirection,” Thelem said. He and Astor headed out the door.

The issue did in fact end when everyone left the chapel. Word of Astor’s eye no longer crossed anyone else’s lips, although it could never truly be rid of their minds. The students simply learned not to talk about it, which was harder in the days immediately after. It didn’t stop some of them from distrusting Astor, but they learned to keep such mistrust to themselves, and generally tried not to treat him any differently for fear of letting on they still weren’t over it. But, over the years, as people came and went and students came who had no knowledge of the eye at all, it became easier not to talk about.

Myrin was the first to graduate from Astor’s former cohort. He was already a couple years older than Hael and Kazo as it was--and thus even moreso than Astor--and had always excelled in his classes. After another year, he was allowed to move up early and move under the tutelage of another Seer. His mentor saw him more than fit for the work, and so he was to be fully initiated--and then ordained--at the Summit in the fall. Astor was approaching seventeen.

That fall, Seers from across Hyrule and all of the Order’s smaller, auxiliary branches gathered for the ceremony. Representatives from Hebra, Faron, Eldin, and Akkala, even the Gerudo Desert came bringing their students who were ready to be initiated. It was always a grand event, even though the Summit itself was more just a longer, more elaborate Binding Ceremony with a lot more words, a lot more incense, and a lot more rope tying. Its grandeur was more in the opportunity to see so many different people gathered under one roof. Zora, Rito, Gerudo, and even Goron seers were present, even though races like the Zora and Gerudo often kept to themselves and their own religious customs, it was fascinating to see those of them who had elected to join the Order instead. And Thelem always enjoyed mingling with all of them, particularly catching up with the Priors of the other branches, whom he only got to see once or twice a year.

But this year at the Summit, there was one especially distinguished Seer in attendance. Clement, the Seer from Hyrule Castle, came to observe the ceremony and get a feel for all the current candidates so he could begin discernment in choosing his successor. Like everything else, the Royal Seer was chosen in a formal ceremony with many of the elders present, but Clement wanted to get a better sense of the current generation of Seers ahead of time, as he spent so much time in the Castle, cut off from everyone else.

Many of the younger seers could not stop glancing at him during the Summit. It was hard not to. Everyone knew he was there for a purpose, and even though no one Seer was supposed to be more important than the others, it was called the _Royal_ Order of Seers, and Clement was, well, the Royal Seer. With the way he carried himself--head high and even, flowing walk--it seemed he was more than accustomed to people gawking at him, likely due to the aforementioned ‘royal’ part, and so he didn’t pay them much mind. Astor tried not to look at him at all. He had a horrible, sinking feeling, even if something didn’t quite add up. Astor was nowhere close to being fully initiated. 

Clement was set to return a few months later, during the Winter Solstice, to make his selection. This happened to coincide exactly with Astor’s birthday.

As winter approached, the abbey was modestly adorned with garlands and wreaths for the coming solstice. Being a religious order built on simplicity, the decorations in the abbey were nowhere near as ostentatious as those within Hyrule Castle and Castle Town itself, where cedar trees lined the streets and were colored with strings of popcorn and dried fruits and small ornaments made from the wood of the sweet bark tree. 

Each of the twenty-one nights before solstice, it was customary across Hyrule to burn a piece of sweet bark in the evening fire. The caramelly, candy-like scent was supposed to bring in warmth and fortune for the coming year, and people often hung amulets made from tags of sweet bark around their homes. Even some of the Seers hung these tags from their own doors and burned them in the evenings after the Vespers. During this time of year, the Order made money selling knitted hats, mittens, and scarves to fair the cold weather, as well as their own sweet bark tags with hand woven threads and customized blessings for the season. 

Then it came time for Clement to return.

The selection took place during a Vesper. It gave Astor, and everyone else, an odd sense of déjà vu to see all the Seers gathered once again so shortly after the Summit, and that was coming from a group of people who were trained very extensively to professionally encounter déjà vu. The only differences to help orient them were that there were not nearly as many people present now, and red ribbons and garlands now adorned the outside of the chapel.

After the typical procession, which was joined by Clement, they processed into the sanctum where, much like the Binding, the Order of the Seers’ tapestry had been brought out into the middle of the room. They began with the typical prayers, the activation of the astrolabe and the star projections, then Thelem gave a small introduction before turning focus over to Clement, who would lead the process of the selection.

Each of the Seers across Hyrule was keeping vigil tonight--especially those in the auxiliary branches, holding their own Vespers at this time as well--all to send energy to Clement and the Seers of Central Hyrule while they completed this selection ritual. And the energy in the room was palpable. While there was always an aura of magnificence around the Vespers, the energy within the circle was now easily two, three, four times as powerful as it was normally, to the point where their hairs were standing up on the back of their necks, and the younger novitiates were almost overstimulated by the electrifying magnetism they could feel in the dome--energy they weren’t exactly masters of filtering out yet.

Clement stood in the center of the room--right in front of the tapestry--while the seven elders drew out a long purple length of satin and stretched it out in a circle around them. They stood each holding it and facing outward, blindfolded, alternating between humming a low, vibrating harmony and whispering prayers that were just indiscernible to the ear. They were humming a note said to initiate a trance, and repeating prayers so they could attune to Fate’s word. Blindfolded, so their focus was drawn only to this task alone, and also so that they saw nothing except with their mind’s eye. Each of the other seers, still holding their Vesper candles, stood quietly around them.

Once he was well-attuned on his own, uttering a short prayer for guidance in his selection, Clement raised the Order’s astrolabe and turned to face the tapestry. There, he raised it above his head and it began to ascend higher, its gears turning to the time and date this next Seer would be appointed. It turned for much longer than Clement had been expecting, to the point where he almost lost focus as he glanced up to check it was still working. But Fate’s workings were never incorrect, and the gears and stars rotated around them, leaving beams of shadow and pockets of moonlight to turn around the walls while the astrolabe found its proper configuration. Astor happened to be standing where two of these shadows converged when the object slowed to a stop.

Clement, whispering another prayer, then raised his hands up toward the astrolabe and stared at it for a moment. Then he closed his eyes, lowered his hands, and retrieved a large needle with a length of thread from the altar. This thread was a light, pale green--though it looked white in the lights around them--which was the color of his own aura. He then did something that most the attendants could not see--as he was visually obscured both by the circle of elders and the fact that he was facing away from them, currently--and drove the needle through the center of the tapestry. 

There was a pause while Clement’s fingers then carefully grazed the length of the weaving, searching for the thread that would react to his touch. A tingle of pins and needles shot through his hand and up into his arm when he found it--so strong it almost caused him to shake and withdraw from it--and he then opened his eyes and brought his hands to the thread, flipping it over to its underside to read the name of the owner inscribed there. He turned back outward to face them, walking to the center and up to the altar to address them.

“I have now read the name written in the script of destiny, and touched the thread of the one who is to be my successor. I swear on my life that my witness is true, and should any part of my testimony prove to be false, shall my thread be severed and I fall where I stand. So now, together with the elders of the Order of the Seers, at the toll of Fate’s evening bell, I shall recite the name of the one who was revealed to me.”

Clement raised a bell from the altar and closed his eyes. The whispering and chanting from the elders grew louder as he rang it once, twice, three times, and then a silence rang out as the last bell echoed throughout the chamber. When all had quieted, including the chanting of the elders, they took a breath in, and all said, in unison,

_“Astor.”_

The name carried. The hissing of the ‘s,’ amplified by so many voices saying it in unison, left a cold chill in the air of the sanctum. Clement opened his eyes, he looked around, and Thelem pulled up his blindfold and turned to him.

“Astor of Hateno Village,” Clement said again. He looked to Thelem, who was doing his best not to grin at Astor, who felt near frozen against the wall. If the named seer wasn’t present in the sanctum, they would simply perform a short prayer and anointing over the Royal Seer’s astrolabe and then the chosen Seer would then be summoned to Hyrule Castle at a later date. But the chosen seer was, in fact, very present; he just wasn’t sure if he could move. Clement continued to look to Thelem for confirmation. “Is there an Astor of Hateno here?”

“I’m here,” Astor said, taking an abbreviated step forward. It was then when they all turned to look at him, and everyone saw the converging shadows that framed him almost perfectly, and the pale streak of moonlight that illuminated across his face. Clement smiled. There could not have been a clearer sign.

“Then the pleasure is mine, Astor, my successor. Please, come forward,” he said, bowing.

Astor could feel their eyes watching him as he approached the center and walked up toward the altar. And, as was often the case with people who had so many eyes watching them, he could feel just how many were attentive as there were those who were reserved--maybe downright jealous. He knew no one could have possibly forgotten the incident that had occurred only a few months ago. And he wondered how many people it made suspicious. Especially today.

Clement, of course, harbored no such suspicion against him, and greeted Astor warmly when he approached. But now, even closer, he got a better look at Astor and realized how small he still was, and especially the novitiate robes he was still wearing.

“You’re young,” he said.

“Seventeen,” Astor replied. “As of today.”

“Fortuitous, then,” Clement said. “Seventeen is exactly the minimum age of an appointed Seer.” Astor’s eyes widened. This was something he hadn’t realized until now.

“Fortune never ceases to amaze,” Thelem said with a smile.

“Am I being appointed then? Now?”

Thelem shook his head. “No. Only chosen.”

“Please, come,” Clement said again, indicating for Astor to come step forward in front of him.

Thelem prepared the anointing oil that was on the altar--a mixture of myrrh and consecrated olive oil--and spread it on a dish that he extended to Clement. Clement first dipped his hands in water, patted them dry with a white cloth, then dipped his hands into the fragrant oil. He had to press a bit of Astor’s hair back to anoint his forehead--which Astor realized and reached up to help him do. 

Clement whispered another prayer--thanking Fate for its selection and asking it to help guide Astor in his mission--then turned to a few more lengths of silk on the altar. Even in the dim and distorted light of the candles and constellations, Astor realized this was the blue of the Royal Family. Clement rubbed the length of the silk with the remaining oil on his hands and then wrapped and tied off the shorter lengths around each of Astor’s wrists and forearms. He then placed the longest thread over Astor’s shoulders.

Clement took his candle from today’s Vesper and used it to ignite a candle on the altar. He then passed this candle to Astor, instructing him to light the tallest candle standing there with the Royal Crest on the holder. Once all the candles were lit, Thelem and Clement led the rest of the seers in their concluding prayers. Astor stood there in the center with Clement and Thelem, glancing around at each of the seers who now prayed for his protection, not sure which ones he could trust, or if any of them could even trust him at all.

At the ending of the prayer, Thelem raised his hand over Astor once more and recited the parting words,

_“And may the eminent hand of Fate enlighten and guide you so that you may always submit to destiny as you work to fulfill your sacred and inevitable duty.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahah so surprise i lied last time. we were all fooled, myself included. 
> 
> THIS will most likely be my last update for a couple of weeks while i focus on my other series. but it's my birthday today and i wanted to celebrate by releasing an update, because these two chapters were some of the two i've been most looking forward to writing so far. hope you enjoyed!!


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